Custom Folder Icons Windows 10

[Benita Vandervoort]

Any way to embed (or permanently change) folder icons (or folder thumbnail images) on file folders on an external hard drive so that the picture will be shown on all computers that access the drive and not just the computer that made the icon change? i.e., I change the folder icons on my computer, then want them to stay with the folders on the drive and not in the root sys 32 batch defaults folder icon in Windows.

I have a few folders on an external drive that I want to save folder icons for. By using Paint save as .ico bmp image, then embed these onto the drive and assign these icons to the folders and have whoever accesses these files be able to see the embedded folder pictures.

I tried all the approaches listed. It works great on the computer that I default with. When I plug the external hard drive into my wife's computer, everything is defaulted to her Vista defaults (or Windows icons and images).

And while cstomizing a folder via Properties also helps. However I noticed a problem when using Desktop.ini. It references the absolute path to the folder icon/logo.... and the drive letter for the external hard drive may not be the same when viewed from other computers.

I've tried a few different methods, and this came up in search as I'm trying to remember how, so despite how old it is, I'd like to add what seems the most consistently reliable and generalized that I've found:

With Windows 10 and 11 machines that I've tried this on, for some reason, it still has the generic folder icon in explorer after making this change. To fix that I have to go to the folder properties, and on the "Customize" tab, where it shows my folder.ico even though it isn't actually used in the Explorer view. I choose "Change Icon", hit "Restore Defaults," and then Cancel (or push Esc) so that it doesn't actually change back to default and overwrite that desktop.ini. After that it actually uses the icon which it already should have been using.

But that's only for the same machine, since it had already loaded a view with the default folder icon; when the drive is on a new computer they should all show the correct icon right off the bat when it first scans the folder.

I will be a bit more precise. I have a few folders on an external drive that I want to save folder icons for. By using paint save as .ico bmp image. then embed these onto the drive and assign these icons to the folders and have all that access these files to see the embedded folder pics.

Windows looks for icons in the System 32 folder by default, but you can choose Browse to look elsewhere. See the directions at the bottom of this page for more on making and selecting custom folder icons.

You shouldn't have any problems editing the registry if you follow only the directions on this page. But, to be safe, consider backing up the registry. Then, should something unexpected happen, you can always restore the registry from that backup.

To add an Internet Explorer icon to the desktop in Windows 11, you can create a desktop shortcut. Go to Start, locate Internet Explorer, then select it and drag it onto the desktop. You can do this for other applications, as well.

How can I change my Dropbox folder icons and use my own icons? Until recently, I could change icons to my own icon picture, which made working quicker. I use Mac OS Mojave on a MacBook Pro, and use Dropbox from my Mac OS desktop finder window. As of the second week of October, all my icons reverted to generic folder icons and I am not able to change them. Is there a new method, or is there a new Dropbox download that I need? How can I again change my folder icons? (10/24/19)

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Hi,@TedC I'm having the same problem, so I tried your suggestion and installed the software update/ beta version. All my custom icons are still missing... which is a pretty huge pain in the butt because we're talking about hundreds of files that I spent a lot of time organizing with custom icons. Any other ideas of something I could try? Also, suddenly this dialogue box has come up on my last couple of re-starts: Dropbox needs to change permissions for the FolderL/Users/[myname]/Dropbox??? I enter the password as prompted, but just not sure why it's suddenly happening and if it has anything to do with my icon issue.

Hey @TedC I'm having a similar issue with my business dropbox account regarding being able to change the folder icons. I can change them on my personal account. I'm the Admin of my business account so I'm not sure why I can't. Can you please help? Thank you!

I switched from Chrome, am really happy so far with the new Edge (first time I like a Microsoft browser). My favorites show the icons I have given them in Chrome, but how can I change the icon directly in Edge? E.g. I have collected weather apps in a folder and want to "rename" the folder with a cloud icon.

I would recommend you to suggest this feature by sending feedback through the in-built feedback(Alt+Shift+I) feature in Microsoft Edge as the correct Microsoft Edge team will get to know about your suggestion and your suggestion will get a +1

@TheShaunSaw Typical MS - product quality depends on the department developing - seems like they usually just send out new version, and then wait for the mob to email bug fixes. Not sure the suggestion of fixes works, unless it's something that is a huge security risk.
Still waiting since v 2015 of SSRS to allow you to type lower case for some colors and not give you an error, e.g., you can type "black" but not "white" - it must have an inital cap (or maybe vice-versa - I switch to hex).
Clearly they fixed this on some color names, but didn't meet the deadline.

Ever since we started controlling our computers with a mouse, icons have been central to our operating systems. By clicking on small, simple images representing a folder, trash can, or magnifying glass, we can quickly and easily trigger certain events.

The appearance of the icons is controlled by the operating system, and in most cases there is no reason to change. It would be impractical, for example, if the trash can suddenly resembled a calculator or the search tool became a folder.

You will now see the default icons that are built into the system, and what they are depends on what you want to change. Browse to the one you want to use, click on it and then select OK. Then press OK once more to confirm.

If you are not satisfied with any of the built-in icons, you can use a so-called ico-file. There are many sites where you can download these online and one of the best is Iconfinder: Browse to www.iconfinder.com and click on Icons.

On Iconfinder there are 6 million icons to choose from and you can find the right one by searching or browsing through categories. Some icons cost money, but when searching, you can tick Free to get only the free options.

If you are not satisfied with the existing icons, you can create your own. You can take an existing image and convert it to the ico format. You can do this in image programs such as Xnview, but there are also websites that do this for free, such as Online Convert.

You can create your own icons using web services such as Favicons. This is a simple web-based drawing program for creating Windows icons. You can do this by drawing with your mouse or by importing an image file from your hard drive. When you are satisfied with the result, click on Download to save the image as an icon file. As you can see, Favicons is a slightly outdated service in terms of design.

After reading a lot and trying for 2 days in a row, I managed to make something work by following this Microsoft tutorial on folder icons, but it's not perfect - changes don't take place immediately. I need to restart explorer / reboot my computer or wait a couple of minutes (randomly) until I see the old icon change to the new icon.

Problem: After chaining my .ico file, I expect to see the result immideiately, but I only see it after 30 seconds to 4 minutes or so. It changes instantly as well sometimes, but very rarely, and I want it to work 100% of the time.

I found a way to see the icon change immediately, but it worked only when manually renaming desktop.ini through the explorer itself. (changing desktop.ini to uppercase/lowercase or to desktop-temp.ini and then back to desktop.ini) When doing so, I see the folder icon change immediately.

That led me to a hope that I can do the same programmatically, so I tried this C++ code, that changes desktop.ini to desktop-temp.ini and back to desktop.ini, also with notifying windows that a change has occurred, but it did not work unfortunately.

Hello, thanks for your reply and sorry for the delay in response. I was speaking to movie file formats. With Mojave they do not show any file icon preview or cover thumbnail, but rather just the file itself in its playable format. They maintain their file preview images (Get Info), whether it's a movie poster, cover or custom file one wants to use (which now only will show correctly/not blurry if it's a square file of equal size in length and height), but does not appear unless selected with multiple files at a time. I have included screenshots to hopefully further explain.