https://www.winhelponline.

com/blog/change-open-folder-icon-explorer-and-registry-editor/

How to Change the Default Folder Icon in

Windows
Last Updated on: November 29, 2020 by Ramesh

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

1. Launch Regedit.exe and navigate to the following location:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\
Shell Icons

2. 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.)

3. For both values 3 and 4, change the data which points to your custom icon file — e.g., d:\
icons\folder.ico

4. Exit the Registry Editor.

5. 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.

(Blue folder icon from imageres.dll)

(Green folder icon from imageres.dll)

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

RELATED: How to Change the Icon for a File Type in Windows

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:

(Windows 10’s Registry Editor shows

the open folder icon)

Registry File

 Download openfolder.zip

In earlier versions of Windows, the custom “open folder” icon is reflected in the Explorer
navigation pane as well.

(Folder pane in Vista) (Folder pane in XP)

(RegEdit in Vista)

Hope you found the above tips useful.