Edge Browser has disappeared and the icon has gone missing

Microsoft Edge is the default browser designed for Windows 10 which replaced the earlier Internet Explorer. The latest Microsoft Edge comes up with the oodles of new features that provide faster access, ease of web organization, built-in personal assistant, longer battery life and many more. Basically, Edge simply makes your life easy. While Edge is the most preferred browser these days, it has both pros and cons.  One such problem faced by many users is the vanishing of Edge browser from the sight.

Windows 10 users have complained about the disappearing of Microsoft Edge from the Start Menu and Taskbar. While this issue seems to be baffling, there appears to be no way out to add this default Edge browser in the start and taskbar menu. To solve this mysterious act of browser disappearing, we bring you some solutions that might help to fix the problem.

Pin Microsoft Edge to Taskbar/Start

It may be quite possible that the Edge icon is just unpinned from the taskbar or Start menu. You can locate it by following these steps.

Search for Edge. Right-click on the search result and select Pin to Start.

If that does not work for you, use Cortana to open Edge. Next, open the Task Manager by clicking Ctrl+Alt+Del and search for Microsoft Edge. Right click on Edge and click on Open File Location.

In the new window, right-click on Microsoft Edge folder and select Pin to Start  / Pin to Taskbar.

Reset Microsoft Edge and Reinstall browser using  PowerShell

You may have to Reset, Repair or Reinstall Edge browser via Settings.

If that does not help, do the following.

Go to File Explorer and hit the following path in the search address.

C:\Users\YourUsername\AppData\Local\Packages

Make sure you give your user account name in the path by replacing YourUsername with the user account name.

Hit Enter.

Search for Microsoft.MicrosoftEdge_8wekyb3d8bbwe folder and right-click on it.

Select Properties and uncheck the Read-Only option in the Properties window.

Click Apply and OK.

Search for Microsoft.MicrosoftEdge_8wekyb3d8bbwe folder.

Right-click on it and delete it. If you get the prompt saying “Folder Access Denied”, click on continue. This will delete most of the content inside the folder except AC folder.

Restart your computer.

To re-register your Microsoft Edge, search Windows PowerShell in the Start menu.

In the search results, right-click on it and select Run as administrator.

In the PowerShell Window, type the following command and hit Enter.

Cd C:\Users\YourUsername

Make sure you give your user account name in the path by replacing YourUsername with the user account name.

Type the following command and hit Enter.

Get-AppXPackage -AllUsers -Name Microsoft.MicrosoftEdge | Foreach {Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register "$($_.InstallLocation)\AppXManifest.xml" -Verbose}

Restart your system.

Scan using System File Checker

The System File Checker (SFC) is the utility command that helps to restore the corrupted file or missing system files. The following steps will describe to you how to run the SFC command.

Search Command Prompt in the Start Menu.

Right Click on the search result and Run as administrator.

Type the following command and hit Enter:

sfc/scannow

Restart your computer.

Hope the solutions mentioned above helped you in solving your problem.