While the default Windows icons get the task done, they aren't especially exciting. If you want to put a personal spin on your estimator, changing Windows 10 icons is a not bad way to do this.

We'll prove you how to alter icons on Windows 10, including program and folder icons. With a chip of piece of work, you lot'll have an all-new interface with a unique look! While we focus on Windows 10 hither, these tips largely piece of work the same on Windows xi.

Where to Find Custom Icons for Windows ten

Before you start irresolute your current Windows ten icons, you need some new icons to replace them with. The Os has a few additional icons built-in, but they're not that great.

Flaticon is a great resource for all your Windows icon needs. The site contains millions of high-quality icons bundled in thousands of convenient packs. You lot tin can grab everything in a pack at once, or download single icons.

FlatIcon Computer Icons

The site offers downloads in several formats. We recommend downloading them in PNG for easy conversion to the ICO format. Keep all the raw downloads in a binder called PNG Icons or like.

If you don't find what you're looking for here, try Findicons, IconArchive, or GraphicBurger. We've besides looked at some great Windows icon packs in the by.

Converting PNG Images to ICO Icons

Windows uses ICO files for its icons. Thus, you'll need to catechumen images from PNG (or other image formats) before you use them as icons.

ConvertICO offers an easy way to do this. You can upload up to l PNG images at in one case to convert them into the ICO format. If y'all adopt, you can also enter the URL of an paradigm you want to convert, cutting out the centre step of downloading the PNG.

ConverICO Converter

Go on all your ICO files in their own binder. Make sure y'all put this somewhere permanent, as moving icon files afterwards you have assigned them will break the link, requiring you to fix them upwards again.

How to Change Plan Icons in Windows 10

Windows 10 makes it easy to change the plan icon for a shortcut, but not the principal executable. Thus, yous should make a desktop shortcut for the app icon you desire to alter, if you don't have one already.

To do this, search for an app in the Kickoff card, and so right-click its name and choose Open file location. In the resulting folder, right-click the programme name and choose Send to > Desktop (create shortcut).

Now yous can modify the new shortcut on your desktop. Right-click it and choose Properties to open a new window. Hither, switch to the Shortcut tab and click the Change Icon push button at the bottom.

You'll run across a listing of alternative icons included in the app, if there are any. To set your own icon, click Browse and navigate to the place where you saved your ICO files.

Windows Change Program Icon

Double-click one to select it, so choose OK on both open dialog boxes. That's all y'all take to practice to change a program icon in Windows 10.

Pinning Custom Icons to the Taskbar

Want to customize the icons on your Taskbar also? The easiest mode to do this is to follow the steps above to create custom desktop icons. Later that, but right-click a shortcut and cull Pivot to Taskbar.

If you'd rather, you lot tin customize an icon already pinned to your Taskbar. While property Shift, correct-click the app icon and choose Properties. From hither, you can follow the same steps as above to prepare a new icon.

Windows 10 Taskbar Icons Properties

You may need to expect a few moments for changes you make in this way to have consequence.

How to Change Individual Binder Icons in Windows 10

Changing a folder icon is similar to the above procedure: to begin, correct-click the folder you'd like to change and choose Properties.

On the resulting window, switch to the Customize tab. Select the Modify Icon button at the bottom to select a new icon from your computer. Windows includes many default icons for this, just well-nigh of them are old-schoolhouse and ugly. Hit Browse to locate your custom icons instead.

Windows Select New Folder Icon

If yous ever alter your mind, only open this window and choose Restore Defaults to go the original folder icon back.

How to Change All Windows Folder Icons at Once

Want to alter all the standard folder icons on your figurer with ane activeness? Yous'll have to dig into the Registry to exercise so.

Recall that it's possible to harm your arrangement by modifying the Registry, so accept care not to touch whatever other values while inside.

First, type regedit into the Start card to open the utility. Yous'll need to provide administrator permissions to continue. Navigate to the following location:

          HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer        

Now, right-click on the Explorer binder in the left navigation tree and select New > Key. Name the new key Trounce Icons, then select it in the left panel. In the blank infinite on the right, right-click and choose New > Expandable Cord Value. Set its name every bit 3. Repeat this to create another cord chosen 4.

Windows Registry Editor Folder Icons

Now, double-click the 3 string you only made. In the Value data field, enter the location of your folder icon in quotes. An easy way to do this is by holding Shift while correct-clicking your ICO file, then selecting the Copy every bit path option. It should wait something like this:

          "C:\Users\User\Documents\ICO Icons\folder.ico"        

Repeat this for the 4 string, so click OK and exit the Registry Editor.

Windows Registry Folder Icon Change

If yous don't see the change have effect upon opening a new File Explorer window, you'll need to restart File Explorer for your changes to take effect. To do this, press Ctrl + Shift + Esc to open the Task Manager. Click More details to expand it if needed. On the Processes tab, find Windows Explorer. Right-click this and choose Restart.

This should use your new icon to all folders. To remove this in the future, simply delete the Crush Icons Registry key you created.

Windows 10 Custom Folder Icons All Folders

We tested this method as working in Windows 10 version 20H2, just other users take reported that it has no effect. Your mileage may thus vary depending on your version of Windows x.

How to Change File Icons by Type

Unremarkably, for each file type, Windows shows an icon of the default program. If you'd like to change this, you tin can use a free utility called FileTypesMan to change the icon for any file type.

Later downloading and running information technology, press Ctrl + F to locate the file type you desire to change. Double-click information technology in the list to open a new window with many more options. Side by side to the Default Icon field, you'll see a ... (ellipsis) button.

Click this and you'll open the familiar Windows dialog box that lets you change the icon.

Windows FileTypesMan Change Icon

Using this, yous can ready split icons to distinguish file types, even if they open up in the same program. You might desire to arrive easier to highlight JPG and PNG files at a glance, or spot old DOC Word files not using the newer DOCX format, for instance.

How to Modify Drive Icons in Windows

Drive Icon Changer Windows

Want to change the icons that you see in This PC for your various computer drives? A free utility called Drive Icon Changer makes this easy.

Information technology's similar to FileTypesMan mentioned above, but much more basic. Simply select a drive and the desired icon, and it will apply them for yous after a restart. That's all it takes.

How to Create Blank Taskbar Icons

Unremarkably, all of your Taskbar icons appear aslope each other. If you'd like to add together some infinite—peradventure to separate icons by type—you lot can attain this with a workaround.

Creating Dummy Batch Files

To beginning, create a new folder somewhere you can keep permanently. Proper name it Spaces or something similar. Within this folder, right-click once more and choose New > Text document. Double-click the file to open information technology.

Within the text file, enter the following. This will create a batch file that's a dummy; it immediately opens and closes a Command Prompt window if y'all click on information technology.

          @echo            off
get out

After this, go to File > Save As. In the saving dialog box, give the file a name ending in .BAT. If yous want to create multiple spaces, you should then copy, paste, and rename the file so you have several named Space1.bat, Space2.bat, and so on.

Windows Create Dummy Batch Files

Prepare a Bare Icon

Windows has blank icons built-in. But in our testing, these can announced as black squares on your Taskbar instead of transparent boxes, which is no good. This means you'll need to chop-chop make your own "bare" icon.

Open an prototype editor (we used Pigment.NET) and hit Ctrl + Shift + R to change the canvas size. Create 1 that'due south perfectly foursquare; 256x256 will work. Press Ctrl + A to select the entire image, then press Del to erase it. This will create a transparent square when saved as a PNG.

Withal, if you lot leave it like this, you'll come across the aforementioned black block trouble. Thus, yous need to take the Pencil tool, zoom in, and use it to describe a unmarried pixel in a corner of the image. This will effectively be invisible when it sits on your Taskbar.

Paint.Net Single Pixel Transparent

Salve the file as a PNG, then use an online converter equally mentioned above to convert this into an ICO file.

Creating and Pinning Shortcuts

Now, correct-click each Space file y'all made and cull Create shortcut, every bit you'll demand a shortcut, not the main BAT file, in order to modify the icon. And so right-click each shortcut file, select Properties, and employ the Alter Icon button to select your new bare icon.

Once this is done, you'll need to add one more chemical element in gild to add these shortcuts to your Taskbar. In the Shortcut tab of each BAT file, enter explorer in forepart of everything in the Target box. Brand certain there's a space before the opening quotes.

Windows Create Blank BAT Shortcut

Now you tin correct-click all your Space files and cull Pin to taskbar. They'll appear as blank icons, allowing you to drag them wherever you like and group your other icons.

Windows 10 Spaced Icons Taskbar

How to Change the Desktop Icon Size on Windows 10

Just want to arrange the size of Windows 10 icons on your desktop? That's an easy ready. On the desktop, yous can right-click whatever empty space and choose View to select Small icons, Medium icons, or Big icons.

If you don't similar one of those presets, concord the Ctrl key and scroll your mouse wheel. This gives yous more granular command over icon size.

Windows 10 Change Desktop Icon Size

In a File Explorer window, you lot'll find more size options nether the View card. The method of scrolling your mouse wheel while belongings Ctrl works, likewise.

Windows 10 Desktop Icons Missing?

If you don't run into any icons on your desktop, chances are that you've hidden them all. Getting them dorsum takes but a few clicks. Right-click anywhere on your desktop, then select View > Show desktop icons if information technology'due south not already checked. With this enabled, you lot should see your desktop icons with no problem.

If this didn't fix your problem, your computer may be in tablet manner, which prevents your desktop icons from showing. To disable tablet mode, visit Settings > System > Tablet.

Finally, if you're missing the default Windows ten system icons, you'll demand to restore them in another menu. Get to Settings > Personalization > Themes and on the right side of the window, select Desktop icon settings.

This will launch a new window where yous tin toggle the icons for This PC, your user folder, Network, Control Console, and the Recycle Bin. While here, you can also modify the icons for these shortcuts if yous desire.

Windows 10 Change Desktop Icon Options

Customize Every Icon in Windows

At present you know how to change virtually every icon on your Windows system. Whether you lot desire to completely overhaul everything or but want to alter a few shortcut icons, you have the tools to personalize your figurer in a fun way.

If you love personalization, it thankfully doesn't end here. There are many other ways to customize the wait and feel of your Windows environs.