How To Change A Folder Icon To A Picture

[Priamo Gregory]

Afteryou paste, if you see a generic JPEG or PNG image instead of your own picture, make sure you open the file containing the image and choose Edit > Copy in the menu bar before pasting. Copy the content of the image file, not the actual file.

After you paste, if you see a generic JPEG or PNG image instead of your own picture, make sure you click the small icon at the top of the Info window before choosing Edit > Copy in the menu bar. You want to copy the content of the image file, not the actual file.

In the "Get Info" popup, when I try to paste the new png or jpeg image onto the old folder icon it only shows the DEFAULT file type icon for png and jpeg. The actual image does not appear. I've tried to repeat the process on folders that I have previously changed successfully only to have them now show the default icon.

Yes, that was exactly the problem. I am shocked that I had to copy it that EXACT manner. I have never copied anything that way before. In fact the instructions only mention this way as an option, not as the ONLY way that will work.

It may be this bug. Try changing the drive name. I did everything 'right' and it still would not let me change the icon. I changed the name of the drive and it unlocked whatever the impediment was. You can change the name back, no problem.

This solution is not working for me. I have a 200 GB card in my MacBook Pro. I changed the icon successfully at first, then decided to change my use for it & need a different icon. No matter how I copy/paste it only either goes to the original default or to the icon I'd put there early on. In fact, it'll actually show the old icon at top of the info window while showing the one I just TRIED to paste up at the bottom!

In fact, I'm noticing that the icon at top of the Get Info window is suddenly not showing up in ANY files except for folders & drives. This is a new issue perhaps with a recent software update? Happened before today's update, though. And not fixed with today's update.

I see a large number of custom icons for Dropbox folders with a google search, so I assume there must be some way to customize the icon, but I haven't figured out. I am running Mac OS 10.15. Any suggestions?

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"This means that you may see that the ability to set custom folder icons has been removed"

Well put it back. I want that ability and I can find other cloud services that don't try to think for me.

The dropbox folder icons are just generic blue folder icons. Is there a way to use a picture within that folder as the icon display? I mostly use my dropbox to organize photos and it is not very friendly for customizing photo galleries. It would be nice to have a preview picture for folders so you know what is inside.

As of 2020, there are so many resources scattered around the web that bookmarks are essential to remember what tool you are in. So many that my bookmarks are arranged in many folders. I have even eliminated the name in each one of them with the intention of having more space and it is really comfortable to click on the pure icon of the requested web page knowing with precision where it will take you.

One last thing I would like to recommend you adding is that sometimes the icons are black and can disappear on the bookmark bar. It would be great to have a tool that can change the icon color into negative or positive depending on the case and even better in an automatized way.

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.

I have hundreds of folders of images on my HDD, and with very few exceptions they each have a cover image that I want to use as their respective folder thumbnails, or at least a memorable first image. Unfortunately, Windows 10 defaults to using two random images in the folder as the thumbnail, and I have to manually select the first image as the thumbnail in the folder properties every singe time. Recently Windows automatically wiped the thumbnail cache, and I really don't want to manually reset the thumbnails on these folders.

Is there a way to automate going into a folder's properties, the customize tab, folder pictures, and selecting the first item in the folder every time? Or would I need a hypothetical "Folder.properties.setFolderPicture()" that Windows doesn't have for security reasons? Python is the only language I have any experience with, but if I need another language to do this I'm willing to try it.

I don't have reputation to comment, so I pile up my answer here. I feel you are better of using folder icons for this purpose, since nowhere on the Internet could I find a way to programmatically set folder pictures, but I'm sure its some registry trickery.

Which type of files do you have? It works for me with .cbr & . cbz files, but not with .pdf. You can try to play around with the settings in > Preferences > File Display Modes > Thumbnails > "show frames" (or similar, i don't have Opus switched to the english version), to hide the yellow background.

One way to do what you want is to create .ico versions of the images, and then assign the appropriate icon to each folder via the standard Properties dialog. Right-click a folder, choose Properties, then on the Customize tab click Change Icon:

You'll need an icon editor (or a graphics program which can save to the .ico format, including "jumbo" icon support) for this. I use Axialis IconWorkshop, which is a very good icon editor (but not free; I don't know if there is a free tool that would suffice if this is all you want it for).

You could probably automate things, since the Properties dialog will just be creating a desktop.ini file in the folder behind the scenes (and setting some attributes so that Windows knows to look for the file).

It isn't something that's built-in, though. It would need a few lines of commands if you wanted it to use a fixed filename for the icon, or a short script if you wanted it to search for an image in the folder without a fixed name. This is also assuming a suitable image-to-icon conversion tool with a command-line interface.

Despite Windows providing some ways to customize folder look since Vista, it doesn't allow you to apply anything but the ICO format. Quite frustrating, as such a limitation requires us to either convert an image to the format Windows understands, or to grin and bear it. Or is there another option?

Provided FolderIco is already installed, right-click any folder you want to assign a picture to and choose "More Icon" submenu. This will open a dialog where you can select multiple supplied icons to assign to the folder.

Switch to the "Create" category at the left side and click the "Load Folder Image" button. Browse for the image you need and add it to the library. Now, just set this newly added picture as an icon for the folder. That's it!

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