How do I set a custom icon to a folder that is on or off my computer?

Well that’s easy..with just a few steps.  (this works on Windows 7, I’m not sure how it’ll work with older OS, and MAC’s can do this intuitively already)

What you’ll need.

An Icon to use with the folder, or an image to be turned into an icon.
You’ll also need an image editor I’m using Photoshop CS5, and Axialis IconWorkshop6.  But with a Google search you can find a plugin for Photoshop that lets you save “.ico” files. If you click on the larger screenshots the fullsize image will open for you to take a closer look.

Step 1.  Making an Icon

If you’ve already got a .ico file picked skip to step 2 ….otherwise continue reading.

Windows 7 supports 256px x 256px icons.So we should start by creating a file that’s 256x256px with a transparent background.I then make a new layer and turn it on an off to test how my icon will look over darker colors.

 

Insert the artwork that you want for your icon here. Make sure that the background is transparent from a ‘best practice’ standpoint.  Also make sure that you only have one layer to save as your png file, as more layers can make the files larger.

Once the png file is saved to your computer (I save to my desktop so its easy to find and then clean up after I’m done).Open Axialis IconWorkshop.This software is awesome for making icons.I 100% recommend it.Its so easy and the files come out looking great.

Now that your image has been imported into the workspace click the “Add Several New Image Formats” button circled in the screen shot below.This will open a new screen that will allow you to pick what icon formats you’ll incude in your finished .ico icon file.

Once you select all the icon formats you want click okay.And the software will auto-generate all the icon formats for you.

If you are so inclined you can now select any of the thumbnails to the left and edit them to suit your needs.
For this tutorial I’ll just click ‘File’ in the top menu and save my icon.

Step 2.  Attaching The Icon To The Folder

Alright, so here’s a shot of my desktop. I’ve got my CircusIcon.ico file and a new folder I’ve created that will become in this instance my Events folder.  If you didn’t create an icon you can just download the icon I’m using in this tutorial from a Deviantart account I found that had the perfect icon for my folder. The link is located in the last section titled ‘Resources’.

 

I right-click on the new folder and select rename. Or the easy way is to just double click right on the text and it should highlight and allow you to change the text. Either way gets you a folder titled Events.

 

 

Open the newly titled Events folder and create a new folder.

I name the folder ‘icon’ and then drag my new icon file into it.
At the end of it all we want our icon inside a folder called icon, inside a folder called Events.

Now comes the magic. Close everything so your back on the desktop looking at the Events folder.
Right-click on the folder and at the bottom of the options that toggle up, select ‘Properties’.

Okay for this next part you’ll want to click on the screen shot below to expand the image fullsize.  All you do is go to the ‘Customize’ tab of the properties folder.At the bottom of this box is a button ‘Change Icon’ click this to open another toggle box that lets you select an icon.You’ll need to click ‘Browse’ and go to the Circus Icon that was inside the icon folder that was inside the Events folder on the desktop.

Select the icon, and click ‘Open’ then click ‘Ok’ after the Browsing for the icon folder closes.

Then you Click Apply which will change the icon in that box to the circus icon we prepared. Then you can click okay and the toggle boxes should all be closed and you’ll see your Events folder with the new icon on it. If you’re planning to leave these folders on your own machine your done. But if you’re going to move them to other computers and you want to retain the icon you’ll need one more step. But before that lets clean things up a bit.

Head back inside the Events folder your new icon is on and right-click on the icon folder in there and go to properties.

Inside the properties tab of the icon folder click a check mark into the ‘Hidden’ toggle. Then click ‘Apply’ and then click ‘Ok’. This will hide the folder so that 1. we don’t accidently delete it. 2. it cleans the folder up so that other people don’t muck with it either.

Now, for those of you that want to move your folders with their icons to other places and have it still retain the icon here’s the magic. in the location bar click with your mouse so you can type. This will reveal the path to that folder. Get your cursor to the end of that path and add this text. \desktop.ini and hit the ‘Enter’ key on your keyboard. A txt file will open with some code in it. This is the magic that makes this all work. A hidden set of instructions left by your machine that tells itself you want a custom icon on this folder and where that icon is.

What we want to do is remove everything in the path before the icon directory including that\ .

Once it looks like this save it and close it.Your done.It now knows that inside of itself is a folder called icon and in there is a file its to use.If you don’t remove this part of the path it will only work on your computer.

One last note:I have found that you have to do this step local on your machine.And not right in a network folder.For some reason you wont be able to see the properties for adding the custom icon to the folder and the desktop.ini doesn’t seem to be in effect after you set it.But if you do all this on your desktop like I did here then drag this folder to the network then move whatever you need in there you’ll be fine.

Hope this helps – if you have any questions or comments – that’s why I put that box below.

 

Cheers.

Resources:

Icons for your folders:http://www.iconarchive.com

Icon for this tutorial was created by a great artist on devitant art http://fengsj.deviantart.com