Are you satisfied with your desktop icon vertical or horizontal spacing? Do you know how to change desktop icon spacing in Windows 11? You can refer to this post from the MiniTool Partition Wizard website.

Windows 11 is a new operating system provided by Microsoft. It is designed as the successor to Windows 10. Windows 11 is based on Windows 10 but is different from Windows 10 in many aspects. It has a brand new outlook and comes with many changed features.

Tip: If you want to know more information about Windows 11 and Windows 10, you can check this post: Windows 11 vs Windows 10: What Are the Differences?

If you have upgraded to Windows 11 recently but you are not familiar with the new operating system, our posts might help you. In this post, you can learn about two methods to change desktop icon spacing in Windows 11:

  • Method 1: change desktop icon spacing via Registry Editor.
  • Method 2: change desktop icon spacing via a third-party program.

Now, let’s see them one by one.

Change Desktop Icon Spacing in Windows 11 via Registry Editor

Windows 11 doesn’t allow you to change desktop icon spacing in Settings. If you find your Windows 11 icon spacing too wide, you need to modify certain registry keys to change it.

Here are the detailed steps.

Tip: You should really be careful while using Registry Editor. It will be quite dangerous if you changed system-related registry keys by mistake. To avoid problems, you can back up your registry keys in advance.

Step 1: Press Windows + R to invoke the Run window. Then type regedit and press Enter to open Registry Editor.

Step 2: Navigate to the following path in Registry Editor: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\WindowMetrics.

Step 3: In the right pane, double-click the IconSpacing key and modify its value to change the horizontal icon spacing. The default desktop icon spacing Windows 11 is -1125. You can type a number between -480 and -2730. Then click OK to save the changes.

Tip: A larger value will decrease the icon spacing because the values are negative.

Step 4: To change the Windows 11 desktop icon spacing vertically, you can double-click IconVerticalSpacing and change its value data. Remember to click OK to confirm the operation.

Then you can press Windows + D to go to the desktop and check if you are satisfied with the new Windows 11 desktop icon spacing.

Change Desktop Icon Spacing in Windows 11 via Third-Party Tools

Another way to change desktop icon spacing in Windows 11 is to use a professional third-party program, such as DesktopOK, Desktop Icon Spacing, etc. Here I take DesktopOK as an example.

Step 1: Download DesktopOK from a trusted website. Then launch the program to get its main interface.

Step 2: Click the Tools tab and select Windows-Metrics in the pop-up menu.

select Windows-Metrics

Step 3: In the pop-up window, drag the slider next to Horizontal Spacing and Vertical Spacing to change the desktop icon spacing Windows 11, according to your preferences.

change desktop icon spacing in Windows 11

If you want to restore the desktop icon spacing to the default value, you just need to click the Default button in Step 3.

You might also be interested: How to Change the Taskbar Size and Alignment in Windows 11?

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About The Author

Sherry

Position: Columnist

Sherry has been a staff editor of MiniTool for a year. She has received rigorous training about computer and digital data in company. Her articles focus on solutions to various problems that many Windows users might encounter and she is excellent at disk partitioning. She has a wide range of hobbies, including listening to music, playing video games, roller skating, reading, and so on. By the way, she is patient and serious.