How to create icons to customize your folders in Windows 10 and 7? step by step guide

The folder icons are possibly one of the most irrelevant aspects or at least the one that most people are least interested in. Windows 10 and 7 users. Nevertheless, there is a small part of the population of Microsoft users who like to customize themsince in this way they can give an original touch to the visuals of your desktop.

In addition, there are those who know some tricks to use them in such a way that you can trick third parties who use your computer into thinking that the content of a folder is different from what is actually in it. If you have a little free time you can dedicate yourself to making these changes since it is extremely easy to create custom icons or change the default image of these for one that you already have on your computer.

In this article we are going to teach you how to create icons to customize your folders in Windows 10 and 7 in a simple way. In addition, you will also learn how to apply the changes and other interesting details about these elements that you will surely like very much.

Steps to create an icon and use it in your Windows folders

Although both operating systems belong to the same developer, there are some changes in the interface of one and the other that make the mission of creating icons a little different. For this reason we are going to explain how to do it in each one separately.

on Windows 7

There are many ways to create custom icons in Windows 7 and later; from bitmap programs to web applications. But we are going to teach you how to do this job from a very easy-to-use software such as Paint. which is factory installed on all computers powered by the Microsoft OS.

With this software you have two ways to make your own icons. The first is creating them from scratch. To do this you must follow the steps that we explain below:

• Open the Paint software and create a new image that has perfect square dimensions of 300×300, 500×500 or the ones you want to make creating the image more comfortable for you.

• Once you have the editor open, go to the menu “Watch” and select the option “Grid”, which will make it appear in the work area and you can lean on it so that your creation is perfectly symmetrical.

• Now use the tool “Pencil” to draw or any other that helps you to make the figure you want for your icon.
• Then click on “Change the size”. This will open a window where you need to check the box “Pixels” and set the dimensions 32×32 in the horizontal and vertical boxes.

• Once you have finished your creation, it is time to save it. What you have to do is go to “File, Archive” and click on “Save as”.
• A window will open in you must set the path where the icon will be saved, the name and the format. The latter must be 24 bit BMP mapand the name you give it must have the extension .ico to be identifiable as an icon.

• With this you will have created your custom icon in Paint.

the second way what we mention is simply take an already created image from the internet and open it in the tool, then change the dimensions to 32×32 and save it as a BMP with the extension .ico to be identified as an icon. Easy right?

For Windows 10

In Windows 10 you also have the option to make an .ico file in Paintbut to give you more options we have decided to explain how to do it using another bitmap program that allows you to make more dynamic icons. This is none other than Photoshop, Adobe’s popular image editor.

In fact, in this program you have an advantage over Paint, and that is that you can create .ico files with transparencies, which you can’t do in the basic Windows editor. Without further ado, we proceed to explain the steps you must follow to make your custom icon in Adobe’s PhotoShop.

• The first thing you should do is obviously open PhotoShop and click on “File”>”New” and set dimensions 300×300 pixels or the ones you want, taking into account that must be perfectly square.

• After doing that you can use any of the software’s drawing tools like pencil, brush or shapes to create the custom icon you want.
• When finished, you must click on “Image” > “Image size” and set the dimensions 32×32 so that it can be set as an icon.

• Now it only remains to save your creation. click on “File” > “Save As…” and in the window that opens select the bmp-format and add the extension .ico so that it is saved as an icon and the job is completely finished.

One thing to keep in mind when making your design is that when you change the size to 32×32, the image will not look the same as when it was at 300×300 or whatever size you used to create it. Thus take care not to overload your designs too much so that they do not lose detail when minimizing them.

As with Paint, you can also make an icon from an internet image in PhotoShopas long as you end up saving it with square dimensions of 32×32 and formatted BMP and the respective .ico extension, since these three factors are essential to create a folder icon.

How to convert an image into a folder icon?

If it has not been clear to you how to use an image as a folder icon by taking it from the internet, you can learn how to do it step by step with us. In this case we are also going to use PhotoShop since with it we can obtain images with transparencies and create more dynamic elements.

What you should do is follow the following procedure:

• Download the image you want to use as a desktop icon. You must take into account that it must be perfectly square so that it can enter the icon category. Although if it is not, you can adjust this factor in the program, but some elements of it will be lost.
• Now you need to open PhotoShop and click on “Files” > “Open” and look for the image you downloaded.
• Once the image is open, if you’re not going to make any changes to it, click “Image” > “Image size” and set the dimensions 32×32 pixels.

• To finish, click “File” > “Save As…” and save the image in BMP format and with the .ico extension so that it is recognized as an icon.

In this way you can easily create a folder icon from an internet image. You can use any type of image, from photos of yourself to png logos without any problem.

How to change the default icon of Windows folders and put a custom image?

You already know how to create your custom icons or turn a downloaded image into one with Paint or Photoshop on Windows 7 or 10 with ease, but How do you set these images as folder icons? You will know the answer right now.

You simply have to follow the steps that we explain below:

• Right click on the folder you want to change and then left click on “Properties” to enter the configuration of this.

• Once there, go to the tab “Personalize” and in the section “Folder Icons” click on “Change Icon”.

• A window will open in which you can see all the available icons, but the one you created will not be there. To find yours click on “Review”.

• Once you find it in the folder where you saved it, you just have to click on “To accept” and the change will be done.

Following these steps you can change the icons of all the folders you want without any problemas long as the image is BMP with the .ico extension that we mentioned earlier.

Best programs or web tools to create folder icons

In this guide we show you how to make folder icons using PhotoShop and the classic Paint, but these are not the only tools you can use for it. Therefore, here are 5 other tools alternatives to photoshop with which you can create your own custom icons.

illustrator

Illustrator is an Adobe program just like Photoshop, with the difference that it has much more powerful tools for creating illustrations and logos, so it could be said that it is a better alternative to create icons. It has a wide variety of pencils and brushes, as well as lines to make illustrations that are quite attractive to the eye.

iconvert

This is not a program but a website that allows you to convert JPGE or PNG files into ICOs so you can use any image as a folder icon. In addition, it has the advantage that it adjusts the images to be completely square in case their dimensions are asymmetric.

Paint Shop Pro

This is a powerful image editor that allows you to convert and create images in BMP format quite easily. Also, you should take it into account to retouch your snapshots since it has quite interesting functions to improve them considerably. It is not free, but it is quite cheap, so you will have no problem buying its license.

CorelDraw

You probably already know him because he is one of illustration creation software most powerful and popular in the world. Just like Illustrator, It has a wide variety of brushes and pencils to create images from scratch and then apply all kinds of filters and others. It is so powerful that you can make images with 3D effects that look perfectly like icons. You can use it to create your icons from scratch or convert downloaded images into BMP format.

pixelmator

We close our list with this good quality photo editor. It is not as powerful as the previous alternatives, but without a doubt can perfectly fulfill the mission of making folder icons to personalize your desktop. It is available on both Windows and MacOS and its license is quite cheap compared to the others that we have shared on this list.

We hope we have helped you learn to create custom folder icons. Now all that remains is for you to put your imagination to work and start creating all you want. That’s all for now.