# How to Open a Program When There Are No Icons on the Desktop  There are certain situations on your computer that feel completely out of your league, such as dealing with a blank desktop screen. Imagine you're using your laptop or your computer and suddenly all the icons on your screen disappear. What are you supposed to do? Now, there are a few methods that you can use to resolve the issue, but you need to know that these solutions can take anything from a few minutes to a few hours. Here, in the article, we will tell you **[how do you open a program when there are no icons](https://datarecovee.com/knowledge-base/open-program-no-icons-on-desktop/)**, as this allows you to keep moving on with your device even when you cannot see the icons on the screen. ## Exploring the methods to open a program without desktop icons Every big operating system brings several built-in options to get to programs without depending on desktop shortcuts, and yeah, this can save you when icons vanish or move around. Below are a few ways you can jump back in right away, even if the desktop is being weird. ### Method 1: Use your operating system’s main menu (fastest, mostly) The quickest, most friendly method is the OS application launcher; it tends to stay reachable even when desktop icons disappear. So, if you are wondering how do you open a program when there are no icons, then this is the first method you should try. **Use these steps if you have a Windows device:** * Click the Start button (if it’s there) or press the Windows key. * All apps should show up in alphabetical order, but on some versions of Windows, like 11, you might need to click “All” first so you can see the whole list. * If you’re trying to open Notepad, you can search for it in the top bar, or scroll until you find it manually. * Then just click the “Notepad” icon in the Start menu, or click “Open” from the left pane. If search results don’t show up, Windows Search might not be running, or the index could need rebuilding, but checking it is usually painless. * Open Services by pressing Windows + R, then type services.msc, and press Enter. * Scroll down to “Windows Search” and make sure the status says “Running”. * If you see that rebuilding the index is required, then you need to use the Search option present in Privacy & Security Settings. * Choose Advanced indexing options > Advanced > Rebuild **On macOS:** This part is a little different. Open Launchpad by clicking its icon in the Dock, or use a three-finger pinch gesture on the trackpad. Launchpad shows your installed applications in a grid, kind of like iOS, so apps get spread across multiple pages. Most apps are in the /Applications folder for system-wide installs or in ~/Applications for ones tied to your user account. You can also press Command + Space to bring up Spotlight search from anywhere. Spotlight typically indexes /Applications and your user-installed apps in ~/Applications, where you only need to enter a few letters of the app name. You can also use the website **[Datarecovee](https://datarecovee.com/)** to learn the methods to resolve this issue.