Icons can be put in the switcher/launcher that Apple calls the "Dock."
The Dock may be placed on the right, bottom, or left edges of the screen.
It can be set to hide automatically and be magnified by the cursor to see the icons more easily.
Running applications will appear and disappear in the Dock as applications are opened and closed. Clicking an application icon in the dock will bring that application to the top window if it is running, or start the application if it is not running.
The small pictures on the Desktop are called as `ICONS`.
Desktop icons.
Things being displayed on desktop is called icons
desktop desktop
It's something called "Desktop Cleanup", and it's moved your unused icons into a special unused icons folder. You have to find the desktop options and turn it off.
Did you try right clicking on your desktop and choosing "arrange icons with" and then choosing "show desktop icons"
Right Click Your Desktop Select View Untick Show Desktop Icons
Aside from manually deleting the shortcuts and icons on your desktop (the Recycle Bin cannot be deleted): you can right-click the background, find "Arrange Icons By" and press "Show Desktop Icons". This'll hide all the existing icons, so if you press "Show Desktop Icons again, they'll all return.
If there is no space on the desktop for icons, the icons will run off the screen. Thus the icons will not be displayed. If you use up the space, you could delete icons you don't use, resize the icons, increase the screen resolution, or create a folder on the desktop to move your less commonly used icons to.
in my opinion the icons are stored on the desktop
your screen refreshes when you close a program causing your desktop icons to flicker
Right click on an empty space on the desktop, go to "View" & click on "Small Icons"