By default, your personal Documents, Desktop, Downloads, Music, Pictures, Videos folder are located in your account’s %UserProfile% location – for example in the C:\Users\Chidum.Osobalu folder. In this post, we will show you how to change or restore the default icons for any of the aforementioned personal folders in Windows 11/10.
How to change or restore Default Icon for a Folder
You can change or restore the Folder default icon in Windows 11/10 using any of the following methods:
- Change Folder default icon in Properties
- Change Folder default icon in desktop.ini file
- Restore Folder default icon in Properties
- Restore Folder default icon in desktop.ini file
In this post, we will be putting the focus on the Documents folder. But the procedure applies to any other personal folder.
Now, let’s take a look at the description of the process involved in changing or restoring Folder default icon, as it concerns each of the methods.
1] Change Documents Folder default icon in Properties
To change the Documents folder default icon, do the following:
- Press Windows key + E to open File Explorer.
- Open your Documents folder’s current location (in this case C:\Users\Chidum.Osobalu) in File Explorer.
- Next, right-click the Documents folder, and click Properties.
- Click the Customize tab.
- Click the Change Icon button.
- Click the Browse button.
- Navigate to and select the icon library .dll or .ico file you want to use.
The %SystemRoot\System32\shell32.dll and %SystemRoot\System32\imageres.dll files contain most of Windows default icons.
- Click Open.
- Select the icon you want to use
- Click OK.
- Click OK to apply changes.
2] Change Documents Folder default icon in desktop.ini file
To change the Documents Folder default icon in desktop.ini, do the following:
- Press Windows key + R to invoke the Run dialog.
- In the Run dialog box, copy and paste the environment variable below and hit Enter.
%UserProfile%\Documents\desktop.ini
If you changed the default location of your Documents folder, then you will need to substitute %UserProfile%\Documents in the path above with the actual full path of your Documents folder’s current location instead.
- In the text file that opens up, on the IconResource= line in the desktop.ini window, change the full path to the full path of the icon you want to use.
If you do not have the IconResource=<icon path> line, then you will need to add it.
- Next, press CTRL + S to save changes.
- Exit the text file.
- Restart the explorer process or sign out from your profile current session and sign back in to apply.
3] Restore Documents Folder default icon in Properties
To restore the Documents Folder default icon in Properties, do the following:
- Open File Explorer.
- Open your Documents folder’s current location (in this case C:\Users\Chidum.Osobalu) in File Explorer.
- Next, right-click the Documents folder, and click Properties.
- Click the Customize tab.
- Click the Change Icon button.
- Click the Restore Defaults button.
4] Restore Documents Folder default icon in desktop.ini file
To restore Documents Folder default icon in desktop.ini file, delete the line starting with IconResource =… Or just delete the file itself. Or do the following:
- Invoke the Run dialog.
- In the Run dialog box, copy and paste the environment variable below and hit Enter.
%UserProfile%\Documents\desktop.ini
- In the text file that opens up, on the IconResource= line in the desktop.ini window, change the full path to the following:
%SystemRoot%\system32\imageres.dll,-112
- The above path tells Windows to use the icon identified by the index -112 (typically the folder icon) from the imageres.dll file. The imageres.dll file is a dynamic link library (DLL) in the System32 directory that contains many of the default system icons used by Windows. This file stores a large collection of icons that Windows and applications can reference.
- Next, press CTRL + S to save changes.
- Exit the text file.
- Restart the explorer process or sign out from your profile current session and sign back in to apply.
TIP: These free software to change Folder icon color in Windows are sure to interest you.
That’s it!
How to restore default folder icon?
If you changed the icon through Folder Properties, right-click the folder, select ‘Properties’, go to the ‘Customize’ tab, and click ‘Restore Default’ under the Folder icons section. If you changed the icon using the desktop.ini file, navigate to the folder and delete or rename the desktop.ini file to remove custom icon settings. After making the changes, delete the IconCache.db file in the C:\Users\<YourUsername>\AppData\Local folder to clear the icon cache and then restart your computer. This will refresh your system’s icon settings and restore the default folder icons.
How do I permanently change the icon of an EXE file?
You may use Resource Hacker to permanently change the icon of an executable file. It is a free software that allows editing or replacing existing resources within executables on a Windows 11/10 PC. Launch Resource Hacker, load the executable and expand ‘Icon Group’ in the left panel. This will display all the icons embedded in the file. To replace an icon, right-click on the icon group and select ‘Replace Resource’. Next, browse and select a new ‘.ico’ file from your system and click Replace. Save the modified file via File > Save As to apply the custom icon system-wide.
Read Next: How to Resize Desktop icons or Change Explorer View type quickly.
