Customizing and hacking the user interface (“Shell”) in Windows is fun. If you want to change the default folder icon with your custom .ico file, this article tells you how. Instructions apply to all versions of Windows, including Windows 10.
Change the Default Folder icon in Explorer
- Launch Regedit.exe and navigate to the following location:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Icons
- Create two REG_SZ values namely 3 and 4. To create a new value, from the Edit menu click New, click String Value.
(Value number 3 points to the shell icon #3 which is the closed folder icon and 4 is supposed to be the open folder icon in earlier versions of Windows. However, new versions of Windows, such as Windows 10 doesn’t distinguish open vs closed folder icons.)
- For both values
3and4, change the data which points to your custom icon file — e.g.,d:\icons\folder.ico
- Exit the Registry Editor.
- Logoff and log back in for the icons to refresh. Alternatively, restart the Explorer shell or force an icon refresh.
Screenshots
Here are a couple of variations I used and how they appear.
There are some neat icons inside shell32.dll and imageres.dll. Also, there are sites that provide fancy folder icons which you can download for free. Here are some icons I extracted from Shell32.dll and Imageres.dll which you can use.
- Download folder_icons.zip
Setting a different “Open” folder icon
You can set a different icon for the “open” folder (vs “closed” folder). Note that the setting has no effect in Windows 10’s File Explorer. But Registry Editor in Windows 10 respects the open folder icon.
For example, in the Shell Icons key, if you set the value data for the string value 3 to the following:
c:\windows\system32\shell32.dll,137
It appears like this:
Registry File
- Download openfolder.zip
In earlier versions of Windows, the custom “open folder” icon is reflected in the Explorer navigation pane as well.
Hope you found the above tips useful.