Folder Icon - Change Windows 7 Default Folder Icon

How to Change the Windows 7 Default Folder Icon​

   Information

This will show you how to change all of the default yellow folder icons in Windows Explorer to any custom icon that you want instead in Windows 7.

User Folder icons will not be affected by this.

   Note

If you have thumbnails turned on, then only empty folders will have the new icon displayed in Windows Explorer when the folder view is set to anything other than Small icons, Details, or List. Otherwise the folders will have a thumbnail preview icon when the folder is not empty instead. When the folder view is set to Small icons, Details, or List, then all folders will display the new icon since they are small icons.

If you have thumbnails turned off, then all folders will have the new icon display no matter what the folder view is set to in Windows Explorer.

   Warning

• You can only do this while logged in to a administrator account.
• This will affect all user account's folder icons on the computer.

EXAMPLE: Folder Icon
NOTE: This is Windows Explorer with the default folder icon (left screenshot) and a custom folder icon (right screenshot). This is with the folder view is set to Details.

OPTION ONE

Change the Default Folder Icon

1. Open the Start Menu, then type regedit in the search line and press Enter.

2. If prompted by UAC, then click on Yes.

3. In regedit, navigate to: (See screenshot below)
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer

4. In the left pane, right click on the Explorer key, and click on New and Key in the context menu. (See screenshot above)

5. Type Shell Icons and press Enter. (See screenshot below)
NOTE: If Shell Icons is already here, then you can skip steps 4 and 5.

6. In the right pane of Shell Icons, right click on a empty space, and click on New and String Value. Type 3 and press enter. (See screenshot below)

7. Right click on the number for the folder type, and click on Modify. (See screenshot above)

8. To Use a Custom Icon of Your Own

   Note

• Be sure to unblock the icon file.
• Be sure save the icon file in a location that all user account's can access (ex: c:\Users\Public\My Pictures) so the icon will be able to be viewed in their account as well.
• You must use a 256x256 pixel icon .ico file for it to display properly in all icon sizes in Windows Explorer.

A) In the Modify window, type in the full path of the icon that you want to use within quotes and click on OK. (see screenshot below step 9E)
NOTE: If you change the icon's location (path), then you must also change the location here in step 8 as well for the folder to still display that icon in Windows Explorer.
"full path of the icon file with file extension"
FOR EXAMPLE:
"G:\Windows 7 PNG Files\My_Folder.ico"
B) Go to step 10.
9. To Use another Icon Included in Windows 7
A) Download and install the free program IconViewer for your 32-bit or 64-bit Windows 7.
NOTE: This program will add a Icons tab to files (ex: imageres.dll) that contain a icon library in them so you can see the icons available in it.

B) In Windows Explorer, navigate to C:\Windows\System32\imageres.dll and right click on imageres.dll, click on Properties, and click on the Icons tab.
NOTE: You can use any of the Windows 7 files that include icons in them that you want though. This is just the most common one.

C) Scroll through the icons and make note of the icon number of the one you want to use to replace the default folder icon with, then close the properties window. (see screenshot below)
NOTE: For example, icon number 190 for the green folder icon.

D) In the Modify window, type in the location below, and click on OK. (see screenshot below)
(full path of the Windows 7 file with file extension),-####
FOR EXAMPLE:
C:\Windows\System32\imageres.dll,-190


10. The registry will now look similar to this with your icon path under the Data column in the right pane instead. (See screenshot below)

11. If you have 64-bit Windows 7 Installed

   Note

To also change the default folder icon in the "Open" and "Save as" type dialog windows as well in 64-bit Windows 7, you will also need to do this step.

If you have a 32-bit Windows 7 installed, then skip this step and continue on to step 12 instead.

A) In Regedit, go to the location below:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\explorer
B) Repeat steps 4 to 10 above using the same settings you used with the location from step 3.
12. Close Regedit.

13. Log off and Log on, or restart the computer to apply the new folder icon.
NOTE: Since you changed the default Folder icon, you might would like to change the Open Folder icon as well in the navigation pane to have them all changed.

OPTION TWO

To Restore the Default Folder Icon

NOTE: This option assumes that you did OPTION ONE above to change the default folder icon.
1. Open the Start Menu, then type regedit in the search line and press Enter.

2. If prompted by UAC, then click on Yes.

3. In regedit, navigate to: (see screenshot below)
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Icons
4. In the right pane of Shell Icons, right click on 3 and click on Delete. (see screenshot below)

5. Click on Yes. (see screenshot below)

6. If you have 64-bit Windows 7 Installed

   Note

To also restore the default folder icon in the "Open" and "Save as" type dialog windows as well in 64-bit Windows 7, you will also need to do this step.

If you have a 32-bit Windows 7 installed, then skip this step and continue on to step 7 instead.

A) In Regedit, go to the location below:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\explorer\Shell Icons
B) Repeat steps 4 and 5 above.
7. Close Regedit.

8. Log off and Log on, or restart the computer to restore the default yellow folder icon.
That's it,
Shawn

Related Tutorials

---

• How to Change the Windows 7 Default User Folder Icons
• How to Change Windows 7 Default Control Panel Icons
• How to Change a Library Icon in Windows 7
• How to Change the Open Folder Icon in Windows 7
• How to Change the Default Libraries Icon in Windows 7
• How to Add or Remove Control Panel from the Windows 7 Navigation Pane
• How to Change the Default Icon of a File Extension in Windows 7
• How to Change a Drive Icon in Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 8
• How to Change Windows 7 System Icons Using Resource Hacker
• How to Change a Folder Icon in Vista and Windows 7
• How to Change Windows 7 Default Folder Icons using Resource Hacker
• How to Enable or Disable Explorer Thumbnail Previews in Windows 7 and Windows 8

 

[avin84]

Is this pic fine
Thanks

 

[Brink]

Avin,

I noticed that you have the name of the first folder in the path is "can be deleted". Are the icons still located in this location? If not, then it will not work.

 

[avin84]

Still in place

Hi brink,

The icons are still in place

Regards

 

[Brink]

Avin,

Could you upload the icons in a ZIP file? I'll give them a test on my system to see what may be wrong.

 

[avin84]

here is the zip

Thanks

 

[Brink]

Avin,

The first thing I noticed is that the icons are only 48x48 pixels in size. This is why they are not displaying. They might display with a small icon view. You need to have these type of 256x256 pixel icons instead for it to display completely.

 

[aerrow]

worked like charm , but when ever i putsomething in the new folder i created it chaged back to default folder showing thummnails which i dont want ..... is there a way to stop the folder goin this change... please help

 

[Brink]

Hello Aerrow, and welcome to Seven Forums.

You could turn off thumbnail previews to only have your custom folder icon display.

 

[aerrow]

Hello Aerrow, and welcome to Seven Forums.

You could turn off thumbnail previews to only have your custom folder icon display.

it worked
thanks a lot man..

 

[Brink]

You're most welcome.

 

[Valmighty]

Hi, Brink

cool tutorial, thank you very much
but seems like the folders with thumbnail ON can't be modified, or can them?
i have this set, should be enough for changing them, coz i don't want to turn the thumbnails OFF

 

[Brink]

Hello Val, and welcome to Seven Forums.

It's a bit more detailed and more work, but you could use the tutorial below to change the live folder icons in Windows 7 with them being able to have thumbnail previews turned on.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/73191-icons-change-using-resource-hacker.html

Hope this helps,
Shawn

 

[Aleksandar021]

Hi

i would like to know if there is any way to change the look of icons, but, i wanna change for example 10 icons, and click with right click, go to properties-->customize-->change icon, and i change the icon, but its apply that change to one icon... is there an any way to change all 10 icon... i don't know do you understand me, i am from Serbia, and my English is bad... i know ...

thanks

 

[Brink]

Hello Aleksandar, and welcome to Seven Forums..

If you only wanted to change the icon of 10 folders, then you could use the tutorial below where you go to properties-->customize-->change icon, and change the icon. You would just need to repeat it for each folder of the 10 folder icons.

Folder Icon Change - Vista Forums

Hope this helps,
Shawn

 

[Aleksandar021]

yea, but i have 25 icons in 10 folders to change... :/ is there any faster way.. ?

 

[Brink]

I'm afraid not that I know of when you are not changing all folder icons at once. Luckily 25 is not to bad though.

 

[Sytheii]

32bit and 64bit and changing live folder icons

Hello.

Just thought I would make a note of a discovery on here.

I use icon-packager. It changed most of the desired icons for folders, including the default icons for "live folders," ie. folders that display as thumbnails using 3 images...folderfront, folderback, and folderdata.

I came to the forum since icon-packager doesn't have the necessary protocols to automatically make the necessary changes to the 64bit parts of windows 7, it only does the 32bit parts. That being said...the only thing left to do was to change the open folder default icon, and the closed folder default icon adding registry strings to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\explorer\Shell Icons
These being the icons that display when you are in an "open file" window in explorer.

Upon looking inside the 32bit location in the registry for shell icons @

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Icons

I noticed a couple of strings in there that deal with live folders, icon-packager must have put these here, because I did not add them.

they are named:
livefolder_back, livefolder_data, and livefolder_front

and the data is simply the full path of the icon.

Hope this helps. It might have been mentioned somewhere in this thread, but I didn't read through all the pages.

 

[Brink]

Hello Sytheii,

Thank you. I shall look into and do some experimenting with it.

 

[Sytheii]

Okie-dokie. I find it hard to believe that others who don't use a similar utility like icon-packager haven't already known this step.

 

[verzasoft]

"open file" dialog folder icon

I still have one problem: i changed the settings in the registry both in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\explorer\Shell Icons andHKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Icons
but in the "open file" dialog, folders appear with a "non-categorized-file" standard icon.

Can anyone help on this?