Earlier this week I accidentally copied something to my Desktop that caused the Desktop itself to no longer be recognized by OS X as a folder. It turned into a “package” instead. All of the icons on my Desktop disappeared and the link to my Desktop from the Finder’s sidebar no longer worked. Here’s how I fixed the problem.
The first action that got my attention was when I clicked the Desktop link from the PLACES section of the Finder sidebar, and got the error There is no default application to open the specified document “Desktop”.
When I tried to access my Desktop in a different manner, by selecting my home folder and then Desktop from there, the Preview: pane displayed my Desktop “kind” as a package instead of displaying the contents of what should have been a folder. By clicking the More info… button…
… I was presented with the full information for the Desktop. And sure enough, OS X believed it to be a package, not a a folder. It wanted to know what to open “package” files with (the Open with: menu).
The solution: download and install File Matey. To install, just open the downloaded zip file, and drag File Matey to your Applications folder. Launch it from there, and click the Later button.
Right away, File Matey will ask you to select an object to analyze and work on. Navigate to the folder that OS X thinks is a package. For me, I had to go to my home folder and select Desktop that way – selecting Desktop from the left shortcut pane resulted in another error.
In the Attributes: menu, the Desktop had the Has Bundle bit option selected. Remove that check. Then click Save.
Restart Finder by opening a Terminal (Applications -> Utilities -> Terminal) and enter the command: killall Finder
Now Finder and OS X once again recognize the Desktop folder as a folder, instead of a package. The shortcut link in the Finder window once again works, and all of the items displayed on my Desktop re-appeared.
That’s it! Hope it helps 
Thank You, it was just what i needed!!!
Except that you haven't found the cause:
how and why has that bundle bit been turned on?
why do you think it won't happen again?
Thanks. You can also do this from the command line with:
SetFile -a b folderPath
see man pages for SetFile, GetFileInfo
You can use setfile -a b "folder"/
Ficanas
YES!!! thanks, this was a quick fix. I think I messed things up originally by dragging over library files into my Address Book and a couple of other applications from a hard drive that I had recovered data stored on… my HD crashed last week so I've been getting my new disk up to speed…
Macs need an attrib command (or something to change all attributes, not just chmod) & a Properties window (Get Info is almost never useful)…you shouldn't need shitware (shareware/payware) to fix an issue…
Brilliant- thank you so much!
Easier way:
(If you have Apple Developer Tools installed… which every Mac user should):
SetFile -a b ~/Destkop
(or whatever the bundled folder is)
THANK YOU!
I have been trying to fix this problem since March. Thank you so much
Easy as pie with the Developer Tools installed, not so nice if you haven’t. Thanks anyway for the hint with File Matey
.
You can fix this with no tools at all.
Create a new folder, open the package by option-clicking and choosing "Show package contents" and moving the contents to the new folder. I had more trouble deleting the empty package because it was the user's Documents folder and the Finder doesn't let you delete that without a fight.
Awesome, fixed my problem right away! Thanks so much =)
FINALLY!!! This has been driving me crazy for over a month. Thank You!!!
Thanks. What a pain. And thank god Google could find you!
Thank you it worked well.
Thank goodness someone worked it out – I could see the Desktop had become a PACKAGE but didn't know what to do after that.
Thanks a heap from Australia.
Thanks! iPhoto had transformed my Desktop into a package… thanks for saving me!!
Thanks so much!
Thanx heeps mate sorted it straight out
Ok, got the package to turn into a folder, thank you. BUT, somewhere along the way I redirected the desktop icon to terminal and can’t figure out how to undo that, or direct it back to finder. HELP!!!!