How to change desktop icon size?

I had the same problem because I had changed the icon size in a window. So I fixed it back from top-right of an open file browser window!

Changing icon size in any file browser window will affect all your windows including Desktop!

Does this apply to all files put on the desktop or just the one icon you're showing? If the latter, that probably means you did it accidentally. Right click the icon, then select "Restore Icon's Original Size...".

The first one, I don't know (yet) how that would happen.

Also, maybe you could try gconf-editor. In it, go to apps>nautilus>icon_view. There's a setting for icon size there. Maybe that's what you need.

If you are using dconf-editor, the path to "icon_view" setting is org>gnome>nautilus>icon_view

gsettings set org.gnome.nautilus.icon-view default-zoom-level 'small'

Just open Nautilus. Go to Edit → Preferences and change the percentage of the Icon View Defaults (in German, Symbolansicht) (33%, 50%, 66%, 100%, 200%).

Why this setting affects the size of the icons on your desktop will be a mystery forever! But that is the easiest way to resize all icons on the desktop at once without using any tool like gconf-editor.

1. Right click the icon you want to resize. Select "Resize icon..."

   

2. Hold-click and drag the handles that appear over the icon to resize it.

   

You can revert to the icon's default size by selecting "Restore Icon's Original Size" in the icon's right-click context menu.

• open a folder (any folder)

• go to menu -> preferences in the file explorer,

• change default zoom level to 100%.

Max icon size

For desktop icons, there is a default size, which could be used as maximum size if you define smaller images than this value.

Using gnome-shell, this value is called: org.gnome.nautilus.icon-view thumbnail-size, but under mate, this value is called org.mate.caja.icon-view thumbnail-size.

You could show this by running command:

$ gsettings list-recursively | grep thumbnail-size
org.mate.caja.icon-view thumbnail-size 64
org.gnome.nautilus.icon-view thumbnail-size 64

and you can alter this by running:

$ gsettings set org.mate.caja.icon-view thumbnail-size 150

or

$ gsettings set org.gnome.nautilus.icon-view thumbnail-size 150

depending on wich desktop environment you're using.

Application

I use a little bash to render icons for my desktop like:

( or with a bump filter: )

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"?>
<svg version="1.0" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"
   xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"
   xmlns:sodipodi="http://sodipodi.sourceforge.net/DTD/sodipodi-0.dtd"
   width="82px" height="82px" viewBox="-1 -1 23 23" id="dfPieSvg-HOME">
  <defs id="defs4">
    <style type="text/css"><![CDATA[
      text {
         font-style:   bold; font-size:      4px; text-align:   center;
         line-height:  100%; writing-mode: lr-tb; text-anchor:  middle;
         fill:      #ffffff; fill-opacity:    .7; stroke:       none;
         font-family:  Nimbus Sans L }
      text#t1 { font-size:    6px; }
      circle { fill:         #062; color:        black; fill-opacity: 1; }
      path { fill:         #800; fill-opacity: 1 }
    ]]></style>
  </defs>
  <g id="layer1">
    <circle id="gC" cx="10" cy="10" r="10" />
    <path id="rP" d="M 20,10 A 10,10 0 0 1 0.86473,14.06779 L 10,10 z" />
    <text x="10" y="12.2" id="t1"><tspan x="10" y="12.2">43.3%</tspan></text>
    <text x="10" y="16.7" id="t2"><tspan x="10" y="16.7">31.4G</tspan></text>
    <text x="10" y="7" id="t3"><tspan x="10" y="7">17.8G</tspan></text>
  </g>
</svg>

Of course, SVG width and SVG height (82px) is computed by my script, and stay smaller than 150.

You could find the full bash script there: dfpie.tgz

Simplest thing I did was to open file manager(nautilus). Then did a zoom-out using the (ctrl+mouse wheel) combo to decrease the icon size as I needed. By that, the desktop icons also got resized to the same icon size! Looks like the nautilus controls the icon size everywhere - desktop-view as well as the folder-view.

In ubuntu 21.04:

1. run gnome-tweaks in terminal
2. click extensions
3. turn on Desktop icons ng (ding) (not Desktop icons)
4. Right click on the desktop -> settings
5. Select size for desktop icons

For others who may have the same question:

1. Open 'files' (the graphical file explorer in ubuntu)
2. edit > preferences
3. under "icon view defaults" change "default zoom level" and see the effect on the items on your desktop.