Desktop Icons Spaced Out?

DISCLAIMER: Take caution when using Registry Editor.

• Change the IconSpacing and IconVerticalSpacing values in Registry Editor to the Windows default value of -1128:

1. Open Registry Editor by hitting Win + R and typing regedit into the Run box.

2. Hit Enter and click 'Yes' to open Registry Editor.

3. Navigate to following:

   HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\WindowMetrics
   

   ^{You can paste this in the "address bar" in registry editor window}

4. Change IconSpacing and IconVerticalSpacing values to -1125 by double-clicking on them and modifying the current value.

5. Save changes and exit Registry Editor.

6. Reboot your machine.

This problem came up for me today and as Angus says, simply restarting windows explorer fixed it.

An even easier way to do this on Windows 10 is to just restart it from the task manager rather than command prompt.

This is a much simpler fix than editing registry entries as suggested in the top answer. It cannot be fixed by adjusting the icon size to small/medium/large etc as that is not causing the problem as OP said.

Right click on the Desktop and select View, then Small Icons. The icon setting for Small, Medium or Large Icons is the only setting that affects Icon spacing for a given resolution.

Check that your resolution has been set to native for your display.

Make sure in Windows 10 Settings, System, Display that Scale and Text size are normal. If System Wide text size has been enlarged, this would cause Icons to space out. Check text size by searching Settings for "Make Text Bigger" and set to 100%.

It happens sometimes when connecting a second display to a laptop. In Windows 11 the IconSpacing were right and resetting Windows Explorer didn't work neither.

Restarting the computer worked (maybe just restarsting the session could work too)

The spacing grid is controlled by values in the registry, as explained in the accepted answer.

For those who don't like clicking around in the registry editor, here is the alternative for copy/pasting into the command-line window:

To see the current settings:

reg query HKCU\"Control Panel\Desktop\WindowMetrics" | findstr Spacing

To change it, use values between -480 and -2780. The default is -1125 (or -1128?).

reg add HKCU\"Control Panel\Desktop\WindowMetrics" /v IconSpacing         /d "-1125" /f
reg add HKCU\"Control Panel\Desktop\WindowMetrics" /v IconVerticalSpacing /d "-1125" /f

To see the result, you need to Sign out and Sign in again. (restarting Explorer doesn't seem to be enough)

To change the icon size, you can click on the Desktop, and Ctrl-scroll with the mouse.