Windows application icons change

Icons provide a visual shorthand for an action, concept, or product. By compressing meaning into a symbolic image, icons can cross language barriers and help conserve an extremely valuable resource: screen space. Inside your app, you use icons to represent an action, such as copying text or navigating to the settings page.

Outside your app, Windows uses an icon to represent your app in the start menu and in the taskbar. If the user chooses to pin your app to the start menu, your app's start tile can feature your app's icon. Your app's icon appears in the title bar and you can choose to create a splash screen with your app's logo. This article describes icons within your app. To learn about icons outside your app app icons , see the app and tile icons article. Use an icon for actions, like cut, copy, paste, and save, or for navigation items in a navigation menu.

Use an icon if one already exists for the concept you want to represent. To see whether an icon exists, check the Segoe icon list. Use an icon if it's easy for the user to understand what the icon means and it's simple enough to be clear at small sizes. There are many ways to create an icon. You could create your own vector-based image. Select the Change Icon button at the bottom to select a new icon from your computer.

Windows includes many default icons for this, but most of them are old-school and ugly. Hit Browse to locate your custom icons instead. If you ever change your mind, just open this window and choose Restore Defaults to get the original icon back. Want to change all the standard folder icons on your computer with one action? You'll have to dig into the Registry to do so.

Remember that it's possible to damage your system by doing this, so take care if you choose to do so. First, type regedit into the Start menu to open the utility. You'll need to provide administrator permissions to continue. Navigate to the following location:. Name the new key Shell Icons , then select it in the left panel. Set its name as 3. Repeat this to create another string called 4. Now, double-click the 3 string you just made.

In the Value data field, enter the location of your folder icon in quotes. An easy way to do this by holding Shift while right-clicking your ICO file, then selecting the Copy as path option. Repeat this for the 4 string, then click OK and exit the Registry Editor.

If you don't see the change take effect upon opening a new File Explorer window, you'll need to restart File Explorer for your changes to take effect. Click More details to expand it if needed. On the Processes tab, find Windows Explorer. Right-click this and choose Restart. This should apply your new icon to all folders.

To remove this in the future, simply delete the Shell Icons Registry key you created. We tested this method as working in Windows 10 version 20H2, but other users have reported that it has no effect.

Your mileage may thus vary depending on your version of Windows Normally, for each file type, Windows shows an icon of the default program. If you'd like to change this, you can use a free utility called FileTypesMan to change the icon for any file type. Double-click it in the list to open a new window with many more options. Next to the Default Icon field, you'll see a Using this, you can set up separate icons to distinguish file types, even if they open in the same program.

Want to change the icons that you see in This PC for your various computer drives? The new icon appears in the Results pane. The new icon is also displayed in the menus and in the client desktop notification area. Skip to main content. This browser is no longer supported. Otherwise, you'll have to repeat this process every time you open the app, which is a waste of time.

Simply open an app you can search for it using the Start menu to do this easily and it will appear on the taskbar. Once it's there, right-click the icon and choose Pin to taskbar to keep it around all the time. Now, you can actually change the icon that appears on the taskbar. Right-click the program again and you'll see a list of options, which differs depending on the app.

Above Unpin from taskbar , you should see the app name listed again. Right-click on this name to show another list of options and choose Properties there. This will open a window to the program's properties panel, on the Shortcut tab.

There, click the Change Icon button at the bottom. In the new window, you'll be able to select a new icon for the program on your taskbar.

Some apps, such as Google Chrome, have alternate icons to choose from in a gallery here. You can pick one of these if you like. Otherwise, click Browse to locate a new icon on your PC. When you're happy, click OK twice to save your changes.