How to Display Storage Device Icons on the macOS Desktop

This practical guide walks through how to display storage device icons on the macOS desktop, explains the main requirements, and highlights common issues that may appear along the way.

To show the storage hard drive icons on the desktop, we need to make some changes in Finder's settings. First, you click the Finder icon in the Dock to bring it to the foreground.

Navigate to the menu bar at the top edge of the screen. Here you click 'Finder' and select 'Preferences' from the drop-down menu. Or you can also press Command + ',' (comma) on to quickly access this item.

When the Finder Preferences window opens, click on the 'General' tab and look for the 'Show these items on the desktop' section. Here, you will see some options with specific content as follows:

• Hard disks: Storage devices installed in your Mac, such as HDDs and SSDs.
• External disks: Removable storage devices, including USB flash drives.
• CDs, DVDs, and iPods: Optical media is inserted into the drive (if supported) and iPod is connected to your Mac.
• Connected servers: The network share or drive your Mac is currently connected to.

Place a check mark in the box next to each category for which you want its corresponding icon to appear on the desktop.

Once you've made your selections, close the Finder Preferences window. If you have any of the devices in the list above connected to your computer, you will see their respective icons appear on the desktop. For quick access, you just need to double-click an icon as usual.

In case you change your mind and want to clean up your home screen, just reopen Finder Preferences and uncheck any options that you no longer need. Remember that you can still access these drives in the Finder sidebar even if they're not visible on the desktop.