How to Change Icons in Windows 10

Windows 10 provides you with the flexibility to change the appearance of different icons. You can modify and customize how these icons look according to your own taste. This customization can be done for various purposes. Some of them are listed below:

  • To make your environment look catchy and trendy
  • To make your environment look user-friendly
  • To highlight the importance of a particular icon by making it look different from the rest of the icons
  • To locate an important icon immediately from a huge set of icons

The different icons that you can modify are as follows:

  • Desktop Icons
  • Taskbar Icons
  • Folder Icon
  • Shortcut Icon

Out of all the types of icons listed above, the folder icons are the most important. The customization of the folder icons can help you a lot in performing your daily routine activities. For example, you are a software engineer and your hard disk is overstuffed with folders. You work on a folder named Software Engineering on daily basis and access the rest of the folders occasionally. Therefore, you can customize the icon of the Software Engineering folder according to your choice so that you can easily distinguish it whenever you turn on your PC. In this article, we will explain to you the method through which you can customize the icons in Windows 10.

Change Icons in Windows 10

We will look at the methods of customization of different types of icons in Windows 10 one by one.

Customize Desktop Icons in Windows 10

In order to customize the Desktop icons in Windows 10, you will need to perform the following steps:

Type settings in the search section of your taskbar and click on the search result to launch a new settings window. The newly opened Settings window is shown in the following image:

Windows Settings

Click on the Personalization tab as highlighted in the image shown above.

Now click on the Themes tab as shown in the image below:

Themes Tab

Click on the Desktop icon settings option as highlighted in the following image:

Windows 10 Desktop icon settings

As soon as you will click on it, the Desktop Icon Settings window will appear which is shown in the image below:

Desktop Icon Settings window

From the Desktop Icons section, check the checkbox corresponding to that particular item whose icon you want to change and then click on the Change Icon button as shown in the image above.

In this example, I want to change the icon of This PC so I will select Computer from the Desktop Icons section and then click on the Change Icon button as shown in the following image:

Change PC Icon

As soon as I will click on the Change Icon button, a list of different icons will appear on the screen. Just choose any desired icon from this list and then click on the OK button as shown in the image below:

Select new Icon

Finally, click on the Apply button and then click on the OK button in order to save your settings as shown in the following image:

PC Icon changed

Now your This PC icon will look something like this:

Customizing Taskbar Icons in Windows 10

In order to customize the icons of the items pinned to the taskbar in Windows 10, you will need to perform the following steps:

Press the Shift key and while holding it, right click on any item that is pinned to the taskbar to launch a menu as shown in the image below:

Launch Taskbar menu

Click on the Properties option from this menu as highlighted in the image shown above.

Properties option

Now click on the Change Icon button. As soon as you will click on it, a list of different icons will appear on the screen as shown in the following image:

Search for new icon

Select any icon of your choice from this list and then click on the OK button.

Finally, click on the Apply button and then click on the OK button in order to save your settings.

Customizing the Folder Icon in Windows 10

In order to customize the Folder icon in Windows 10, you will need to perform the following steps:

Right-click on that particular folder whose icon you want to change to launch a cascading menu as shown in the image below:

Righ-click on folder

Click on the Properties option from this menu as highlighted in the image shown above.

The Folder Properties window will appear which is shown in the following image:

Folder Properties window

Now click on the Customize tab from this window.

Customize tab > Change Icon

Click on the Change Icon button as highlighted in the image shown above.

As soon as you will click on it, a list of different icons will appear on the screen as shown in the image below:

Select new Icon

Select any icon of your choice from this list and click on the OK button.

Finally, click on the Apply button and then click on the OK button in order to save your settings.

Customizing the Shortcut Icon in Windows 10

In order to customize the shortcut icon in Windows 10, you will need to perform the following steps:

Right-click on any particular shortcut whose icon you want to change to launch a cascading menu as shown in the following image:

Right-click on shortcut

Click on the Properties option from this menu as highlighted in the image shown above.

Shortcut properties

Now click on the Change Icon button.

As soon as you will click on it, a list of different icons will appear on the screen as shown in the image below:

Change Shortcut Icon

Select any icon of your choice from this list and click on the OK button.

Finally, click on the Apply button and then click on the OK button to save your settings.

Conclusion

In this way, you can customize various types of icons in Windows 10 using a very easy and simple method. If you want to revert the changes that you have made, you will only need to locate the Restore Defaults button in the corresponding Properties window and click on it. As soon as you will click on this button, your previous icons will be restored.