I came across this issue on my laptop the other day where OS X thought my Desktop was actually a package. If you’re unfamiliar with packages (or bundles), they are really just directories containing more files and directories, but by default they open with an application or they are themselves an application. In fact, if you right click on almost any Mac application, there is an option to “Show Package Contents.” That’s all great and wonderful, but the Desktop is not supposed to be a package. So how the heck do I fix this? Well, my normal *nix intuition was that it was a permission, but I couldn’t turn anything up. After a bit of digging, I found a ManPage with all the details on these extra file/directory attributes.

Here’s how I fixed it:

1. Open Terminal (Located in your /Applications/Utilities directory)
2. setFile -a b Desktop/ (by default a new terminal will be in your users directory)

Well, I’m happy because I have access to my Desktop again. I’ll stop nerding out now and let you back to your life!