The embodiments of the present disclosure provide an icon control method and a terminal device. The method includes: receiving a first input that is performed by a user, where the first input is used to trigger a terminal device to enter an icon editing state, a target object is displayed on N pages on a desktop of the terminal device, the target object includes at least one of the following: an application icon or an application folder, where one application folder includes at least two application icons, and one application icon is used to indicate one application; and displaying at least one type of editing control on the desktop in response to the first input, where each type of editing control of the at least one type of editing control is used to edit the target object on the N pages; where in a case that the terminal device is in the icon editing state, the at least one type of editing control is always displayed on the desktop.