Download customfiles icons for pc

It’s surprising that Windows doesn’t have a built-in option to allow users to set custom icons for file types. If you have a custom file type and the corresponding program doesn’t have a nice-looking icon in its .exe or .dll resource, you can change or customize the default icon for that file type manually.

This article explains how to change the default icon for a file type using different methods in Windows. Instructions apply to all versions of Windows, including Windows 10

How to Change the Default Icon for a File Type?

You can change the default icon for a file type using the built-in Registry Editor. In the second method, let’s see how to change the default icon using Default Programs Editor.

Method 1: Change file type icon using the Registry Editor

Let’s assume you want to change the file type icon for .txt files, and here is how to do that.

1. Click Start, type and press ENTER
2. Navigate to the following branch: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts\.txt\UserChoice
3. In the right-pane, note down the value data for (e.g. ). This is the user chosen (via Default Programs or Open with dialog) Programmatic Identifier for the file extension.
   

   Registry Branch Not Found?

4. If the branch does not exist, navigate to the following branch: HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.txt
5. In the right-pane, note down the value data (e.g. ).
   
6. Navigate to the following key (where is the Prog ID noted in Step 2 or Step 4 above) HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\txtfile\DefaultIcon

   If the key does not exist by default, you need to create it manually.
   

7. In the right-pane, double-click and mention the path to your custom icon (.ico file or reference to a icon inside a EXE/DLL file. See “Icons From DLL/EXE Files” paragraph at the end of this article).
   
8. Edit the value data, mentioning the path to a icon file. For this example, I used a notepad icon file from the web, saved it to a permanent location and mentioned the full path.If you’re using a custom icon file, make sure it’s at least 128 x 128, although it’s not a rule but this is to make sure icons look nice when folder view is set to large or extra large icons.
9. Exit the Registry Editor.
10. Logoff and login back, or refresh the icons and see if the Text file icons are now updated.
    

Icons From DLL/EXE Files

If you don’t have a custom .ico file, you may use the icon picker dialog box to choose an icon from a EXE/DLL file. To launch the icon picker dialog, right-click on a folder in your system, click Properties. Click the Customize tab, and click Change Icon… button. Use the icon picker to choose the icon and make a note of the index. The index starts from “0” and you need to proceed vertically when counting (top to bottom.)

Browse to or and note down the icon index, simply cancel the icon picker dialog and close folder properties dialog.

For example, to set the th icon in Shell32.dll, mention the following path, in Step 8:

To make it clear, this procedure doesn’t change the file type associations, only the icon assigned to that file type. If the icons don’t update even if you restart Windows, clear and rebuild the icon cache.

Method 2: Change file type icon using Default Programs Editor

Don’t want to edit the registry to change file type icons? There are 3rd party tools like Default Programs Editor and FileTypesMan that can change the file type icons and association settings.

Default Programs Editor is a very useful tool which helps you to edit file type associations, add or remove AutoPlay handlers and static context menu entries. We’ve covered Default Programs Editor before. Default Programs Editor – A Useful File Association Editor for Windows

In this method, let us see how you can accomplish the task using the Default Programs Editor.

1. Download Default Programs Editor, unzip and run the executable.
2. Select File Type Settings
   
3. Click Icon
   
4. Select the file extension for which you want to change the icon, in the next screen.
   
5. This screen shows the current icon for the file type. To change it, click on the Browse button.
   
6. In the icon picker dialog that’s displayed, browse and locate an icon, or point to a custom .ico file if you have one. The built-in imageres.dll and shell32.dll files contain many icons for you to choose from.
7. Click the Save Icon button to save the changes to the registry.

   

   As you can see in the screenshot, you also have the option to save the settings to a file. In case you need to apply the changes to several computers, you can output the settings to a .REG file. This can be done by clicking the arrow mark near the Save Icon button, and choosing Save to .reg file. You can deploy or apply the .reg file on other computers without having to run the utility again.

That’s it! The default icon for .txt file type is changed would now refresh or update automatically!

Method 3: Change file type icon using FileTypesMan

FileTypesMan is an alternative to the Folder Options “File Types” tab (XP-era) in Windows. It displays the list of all file extensions and types registered on your computer. For each file type, the following information is displayed: Type Name, Description, MIME Type, Perceived Type, Flags, Browser Flags, and more. FileTypesMan also allows you to easily edit the properties and flags of each file type, as well as it allows you to add, edit, and remove actions in a file type. This utility works in all Windows versions including, Windows 10.

Screenshots

is the Windows-default icon for .txt files.

After setting the default icon to via the icon picker dialog, here is how it shows up:

Hope the above guide helped you change file type icons on your Windows 10 computer easily!