7 Best Ways to Fix App Icons Not Showing in Taskbar on Windows 10

Don’t you just love to load your Windows 10 PC with all the amazing apps? Thanks to these colorful icons which help you to identify it quickly and double click on it to launch the application, especially from the taskbar in Windows. However, some users have complained that app icons do not show up when pinned to the taskbar in Windows 10. It’s kind of weird.

You can examine the problem from two possibilities. In one case, you pin the app icon to the taskbar, but it’s not visible. You can still open the application by clicking on the empty area or viewing the option “Detach from taskbar” instead of “Pin to taskbar” on the Start menu. We have already explained how to fix this problem in detail. I recommend you check out this guide and come back here if the issue persists.

The second situation is when the icons have disappeared or are missing from the taskbar. Clicking is unnecessary in this situation, and repinning the application does not work. Hope one of the solutions below works for your Windows PC.

Let’s start.

1. Restart Windows Explorer

Before doing this, you should note that it will close all open windows and maybe even apps. You can save all of your work before you go ahead.

Step 1: Press Ctrl + Shift + Esc to open Task Manager. Find Windows Explorer under the Processes tab. Right click on it and select Restart.

Fairly easy and ideally it should do the trick.

2. Disk cleaning tool

This will basically do the same as a third party app like CCleaner.

Step 1: Press Windows Key + E to open File Explorer. Select drive C and you will see the Disk Cleanup tool listed under Drive Tools. You can also find it in the Start menu.

2nd step: The default selection should work, but you can choose more options if you know what they will do. Click “Clean up system files” to start the cleaning process.

3. Display driver

Maybe your PC’s display driver is working and this is causing application icons to not show up. Of course, this seems unlikely to anyone, but there is nothing wrong with solving it. We’ve covered everything you need to know about drivers before.

You can find display drivers in Device Manager under Graphics Cards. You can try Uninstall, Reinstall, and Update to see if that helps.

4. Rebuild the icon cache

We are doing this to take care of corrupt icon files responsible for app icons not showing on taskbar.

Step 1: Find and open the command prompt from the Start menu with administrator rights (click Run as administrator).

2nd step: You have to type the commands below one at a time and press Enter. We recommend that you follow the order.

ie4uinit.exe -show

taskkill /IM explorer.exe /F

DEL /A /Q "%localappdata%IconCache.db"

DEL /A /F /Q "%localappdata%MicrosoftWindowsExplorericoncache*"

shutdown /r /f /t 00

The last command in the list will restart your computer immediately. So keep that in mind before you go ahead.

5. Registry Editor

Messing around with the registry editor can be dangerous. I recommend that you take a backup before going ahead.

Step 1: Find and open Registry Editor from the Start menu.

2nd step: Press Ctrl + F or select Find from the Edit menu.

Step 3: Search iconstreams and press Enter.

Step 4: Delete the iconstreams entry in the right pane.

Step 5: Repeat the steps and find and delete comics this time.

Restart your computer once and check whether the icons show in the taskbar or not.

6. Re-register the taskbar

It can help with the icon display issue.

Step 1: Open the command prompt with administrator rights as you did in the previous step.

2nd step: Type the command below and press Enter to run it. Make sure you scroll all the way to the right to copy the entire command.

Get-appxpackage -all *shellexperience* -packagetype bundle |% {add-appxpackage -register -disabledevelopmentmode ($_.installlocation + “appxmetadataappxbundlemanifest.xml”)}

You also try this command if the above does not work, but only after completing all the steps.

Get-AppXPackage -AllUsers | Foreach {Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register “$($_.InstallLocation)AppXManifest.xml”}

Step 3: Press Windows Key + E to open File Explorer and navigate to the folder structure below.

C:/Users/name/AppData/Local/

Replace the word “Users” with the username for your PC. Can’t view the location of the file? Enable hidden items on the View tab.

Step 4: Find and delete the TileDataLayer file inside. Unable to delete the file? Find and open services.msc from the Start menu and find the Tile Date template server entry. Right click on it and stop the service. Now you should be able to delete the file.

It is not necessary to restart your computer.

7. SFC scan

This will scan the system files for irregularities and corrupted files and repair them if necessary.

Step 1: Open the command prompt again with administrator rights from the start menu.

2nd step: Give the command below.

sfc /scannow

Wait for it to run. You should see 100% verification at the end.

Pop icon

If the problem is limited to a particular application, you can try reinstalling the application after using Revo Uninstaller to perform a clean uninstall. But most of the users do not face this particular problem. In the meantime, there are other ways to launch an app. Use the Start menu or the PowerToys shortcut. Hope icons appear after following our solutions. Did any of them help or you found another solution? Share it in the comments.