Icons on desktop

Hello Jack.

Sounds like one of 2 things... first a slip of a drag & drop operation...

Click on Finder in the Dock, Open a new Finder window & navigate to Desktop folder, use list mode, do you recognize what they are & where they should be?

Are more being created?

If not the first thing we'll work on the second thing.

Safe Boot, (holding Shift key down at startup), does the problem occur in Safe Mode? Could take 10 minutes.

Safe mode attempts to repair Disks & clears lots of caches & loads safe Drivers, & prevents loading of 3rd party extensions, so if Safe Mode works try again in regular boot.

EtreCheck is a FREE simple little diagnostic tool to display the important details of your system configuration and allow you to copy that information to the Clipboard. It is meant to be used with Apple Support Communities to help people help you with your Mac. It will not display any personal info.

https://www.etrecheck.com/

Pastebin is a good place to paste the whole report if you capture the URL while there…

https://pastebin.com/

Whew, they've changed pastebin & made it harder, but after pasting in, click Create new paste button, then Embed button, then copy the URL...

<script src="https://pastebin.com/embed_js/KuvnghqA"></script>

The important part of the above is between the quote marks...

https://pastebin.com/embed_js/KuvnghqA

If pastebin is a problem for you then workable but harder for me to work with...the Note tool on the bottom of this editor's toolbar, as shown in the image, to copy and paste the output from EtreCheck. In a Reply before you click post, look for this to add longer texts...

The problem is not one of insufficient memory or storage space. It's likely just that those icons have been misplaced from their proper folder(s) wherever that might be.

You'll need to follow the guidance in previous posts to get things put back where they belong.

Generally - Icons on the Desktop are aliases pointing to the Actual file or Application. Control click the Icon and what additional information is offered??