How to change spacing between Desktop Icons Windows 11 / 10

I just updated my Windows to its new features release version and when it came back to the desktop after installing the update, I saw the spacing between the icon is increased. I totally didn’t like the way now they show the icons. I am not sure it’s only me that seeing the icon that way or Microsoft intentionally did that. So I decided to decrease the icon spacing so it looks a little bit compact and gets more icons on the desktop.

NOTE: This guide works on Windows 11 and Windows 10 as well, so just follow the steps given below.

See also: Show This PC or Control Panel icon on the Desktop in Windows 11

Change spacing between desktop Icons Windows

I couldn’t find any way to change icon spacing from the Windows Settings. But, I found a registry modification that allows changing icon’s horizontal and vertical spacing. Here is how to do that.

1. Press Windows + R key combination to open up the Run Windows, or right-click on the Start button and select the Run option.
2. Type regedit in the text box and hit enter to open Windows Registry Editor.
   
3. Now navigate to the following folder in the registry editor.
   Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\WindowMetricsHere, when you select the WindowsMetrics folder you will see the following two keys on the right side with the name:
   IconSpacing
IconVerticalSpacing
   
4. As you can see the values of these two keys are -1700 in the Data column. We need to change it to an ideal value -1100 of whatever you want.
5. Double click the IconSpacing key to change its value to -1100 and repeat it for the IconVerticalSpacing key as well.
   
6. As you can see the value for both keys is -1100.
   
7. Now, just Sign out from your account and Sign In back to see the changes.|

You can tweak the value a little bit to adjust the spacing between icons as you like, for me -1100 is good on the eyes and I can view more icons on the desktop.

Did this happen with your desktop when you updated Windows? Please leave a comment below and tell us If this guide works for you.