How to Remove Shortcut Arrows From Desktop Icons For a Cleaner Look on Windows

[@whiskybravopapa]

Did the tweak 4 weeks or so ago. Great! Worked great until today. Now all of my desktop shortcut icons have turned into black boxes…

[@FARCRYALGERIA]

you always bring good tips thanks from algeria

[@zetectic7968]

I like the tips but I can't be bothered to do them. I seem to remember Power Toys did this in Win 7, a simple tick the box.

[@Yackalips]

I did this but now they are all black boxes

[@TheForce_Productions]

Same here, never found a flawless method to reliably remove the arrows from shortcuts, they always return after some restarts, appears a horrible black square over the shortcuts or even all the icons in the desktop disappear.

[@RohanDaumoo2210]

I learned it from another youtuber long time ago it worked flawlessly unti the new windows defender update from yesterday, now it's all black box. Had to delete the registry.

[@yangkikhangsar885]

use medium or small icons and the black box doesnt show up. u can also remove the code from registry and keep the string with 29 but some recent windows update makes it unusable unless u restart pc and redo it when the icons dissapear

[@sahilahmedshaikh3809]

I works thanks

[@JoshuaMattingly]

3rd party software I use all the time for all my setups: Ultimate Windows Tweaker 4 for Windows 10 Ultimate Windows Tweaker 5 for Windows 11

[@WadeHenricksen]

THIS WAS THE ANSWER THANK YOU

[@mk83_Daniel_Williams]

[@mikebaker2927]

If you want a clean look, don’t add shortcuts to the desktop.

[@MrRoko91]

Shortcuts can be placed in other folders other than desktop.

[@mikebaker2927]

@@MrRoko91 yes they can. But then why would you want to remove the arrow if it was in another folder?

[@MrRoko91]

@@mikebaker2927 'cuz it would be cleaner there too 🙂

[@Yackalips]

what if you want to add games to your desktop? those are shortcuts too. it looks really ugly when all the games and apps have the exact same shortcut symbol