Quickly show/hide desktop icons on macos

toggle-desktop-icons.sh

#!/bin/bash

# To install: just copy this script to your machine and name it whatever you want.
# Let's say you named it toggle-desktop-icons.sh, then all you need to do is make
# the script executable, like this:
#
# chmod +x toggle-desktop-icons.sh
#
# Now you can execute the script directly in the terminal any time you want to
# show/hide the desktop icons, like this:
#
# ./toggle-desktop-icons.sh

prevValue=$(defaults read com.apple.finder CreateDesktop 2>&1)
nextValue=$([[ "$prevValue" == "true" || "$prevValue" == *"does not exist"* ]] && echo "false" || echo "true")

if [[ "$nextValue" == "true" ]]; then
	echo "Showing desktop icons..."
else
	echo "Hiding desktop icons..."
fi

defaults write com.apple.finder CreateDesktop $nextValue
killall Finder

MacOS 14 now has a preference for this 👌