desktop items have vanished

elliej2410 wrote:

I’m on the correct user as I only have two on my Mac

See if Desktop & Documents got activated in iCloud Drive

Add your Desktop and Documents files to iCloud Drive - Apple ...

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MacOS is inherently a Multiple-user system. Even if you only create One or a small number of users, that does not change. There is no "owner" of a Mac. Files belong to one User, and are protected from access by any other Users.

If you accidentally log in as a different user, or as "guest" you will NOT have access to the files of any other User, and your desktop may indeed be blank, because that specific User-id has not stored anything there.

Ok.

If you can remember the name of a file you left on the desktop try using Spotlight to search for it by name or contents.

An unusual but possible problem is accidentally dropping a folder (such as the Desktop folder) into another folder using the Finder. In that case a new Desktop folder may be automatically created. Your files would not be gone, but would not be where you expected them be.