Files and folders in HOME are appearing on the desktop

[Ralf Mardorf]

On Wed, 30 Sep 2020 11:16:29 -0700, Bob wrote:
>I was trying to add a "shared folder" in VirtualBox when something
>went wrong. Most but not all of the files in my home directory and a
>partition mounted at HOME disappeared.

Hi,

when you tried to add a shared VBox folder probably something else
"went wrong", since what ever you were doing with VBox, can not
have affected the desktop and/or unmount a partition. Keep in mind that
unmounting a partition requires root privileges, while adding a shared
folder should be done without root privileges. OTOH desktop
environments tend to suffer from the silly custom to bypass sane
security measures.

>I have recovered most everything from backups.  The problem is that
>the desktop is now showing icons for the files and folders in HOME.
>
>How do I stop the files and folders in HOME being also placed on the
>desktop?

What desktop {,environment} are you using? Does it show all files and
folders or some files and folder? You at least need to mention the
Ubuntu release.

  $ lsb_release -a

Keep in mind that what desktop environment is used by default, depends
on the release of Ubuntu.

>How do I delete the icons that have already been placed on the desktop?

Viewing icons such as mounted partitions or the waste bin usually can
be enabled or disabled by the preferences of the desktop {,environment}
you are using. The desktop also might show the contend of

  ~/Desktop/

but unlikely shows the contend of

 ~

. However, have you by any chance run a file manager other than your
desktop environment's default file manager? It might have taken over the
desktop.

In short, google for your desktop environments settings dialog, it most
likely provides a dialog to enable and disable icon views. File
managers usually provide a menu to change preferences, where you
probably could disable to taken over the desktop, or else to enable or
disable icon views on the desktop.

Regards,
Ralf