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How to Change Folder Icon in Windows 10

In modern Windows versions, you can assign a custom icon to a folder stored on your drive. In this article we will see how it can be done using File Explorer in Windows 10.

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Previously we showed you how to change the folder icon for all folders in Windows 10. Now we will see how to change it just for one specific folder.

Windows 10 Change Folder Icon

Before proceeding, it is worth mentioning that if you change the icon of a folder, it won't show a thumbnail preview of its contents in the large icons view. You will need to restore the default folder icon to get this feature working again.

To change a folder's icon in Windows 10, do the following.

  1. Open This PC in File Explorer.
  2. Locate the folder whose icon you wish to customize.
  3. Right click it and select Properties in the context menu.Folder Context Menu Windows 10
  4. In the Properties window, go to the Customize tab.Folder Properties Windows 10 Customize Tab
  5. Click on the button Change Icon.
  6. In the next dialog, pick a new icon and you are done.Change Folder Icon Windows 10

Tip: There are plenty of good icons in the following files:
C:\Windows\system32\shell32.dll
C:\Windows\system32\imageres.dll
C:\Windows\system32\moricons.dll
C:\Windows\explorer.exe

Change the icon of a folder included in a Library

If you right-click a folder inside any Library, you will be surprised to see that there is no Customize tab!Folder Properties Windows 10 Customize Tab Missing

The Customize tab will be hidden. To avoid this limitation, do the following.

To change the icon of a folder included in a Library, do the following.

  1. Open the desired library.
  2. Right click the folder and select Open folder location in the context menu.Windows 10 Library Open Folder Location
  3. The target folder will be re-opened in the Explorer window. Its physical location will be opened, so you can change its icon as described above!Folder Context Menu Windows 10

For reference, see the following article: How to change the icon of a folder inside a Library.

That's it.

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Author: Sergey Tkachenko

Sergey Tkachenko is a software developer who started Winaero back in 2011. On this blog, Sergey is writing about everything connected to Microsoft, Windows and popular software. Follow him on Telegram, Twitter, and YouTube.

8 thoughts on “How to Change Folder Icon in Windows 10”

  1. Wow, I remember those old school icons in moricons.dll, I didn’t realize that they were still included in Win10.

    Another good source is ddores.dll

  2. this works only for File Explorer Windows what about,
    How to change folder icons inside File Open/Save Dialog Box for windows 10 …….?

    1. It depends on a folder.
      Some folder icons can be changed with Registry.
      In other cases you can edit the Desktop.ini file.
      Could you please tell for which folder you are trying to change the icon?

  3. How would I pull out the default folder icon used by file explorer so I can customize it?
    Can anyone recommend a good free icon editor?

  4. No clock in any of these. It would seem to be an obvious thing for anyone who wants to click onto a timecard app, but nothing.

  5. this makes me sad because i want my laptop to have a new feel and not some old icons. i wish you could do thid with pictures

    1. You can doing so by converting a picture to a icons using a website. Enter into google “picture to icon” and it will let you makes an icons from a picture. You can select this icons

      enjoy little one

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