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yotamoo
Asked: 2012-01-31 03:40:43 +0800 CST

Changing the default folder icon

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I am trying to change the default folder icon, so I've googled a little and found out that I can do it ub

/use/share/icons/my_theme/places

Problem is that under 'Places' the are numerous folders

16 22 24 32 48 64 96 scalable

So, what folder do I need? They all have folder.svg in them so I'm not sure what to change.

Also - my icon is a .png file, how do I convert it to .svg? Thanks

icons

2 Answers

  1. You can't convert .png to .svg as far as I know but if you can find a .svg file of the icon which you want, follow these steps:

    1. Your theme's Places folder may not be the right location. If you can find "folder.svg" in there that's ok but if you can't, you should open your theme's "index.theme" file with gedit and then check its Inheritences's Places folders. It should be in the folder named "16".
    2. When you find "folder.svg" as an original file, not a link, change its name as "folder.svg.backup" and then copy your .svg file to here and name it "folder.svg".
    3. Make a link your new "folder.svg", copy and paste it to all other folders in your theme's Places folder. Don't forget to make these links' names "folder.svg"
    4. When you log out and come back, your folder icon must be changed.

    Check out these answers to convert .png to .svg as mentioned in the comments.

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  2. Based on my experience changing the folder.svg icon :

    First of all you can use a folder.png file, rename it into folder.svg and be done.

    Second there is a folder.icon file in the .../places/48 (default nautilus zoom is 48) that for some reason might index and cache the file for shorter loading times which I removed until I restarted nautilus to see changes applied to size 48.

    Nautilus uses the appropriate icon size for the appropriate display size (zoom) of folders in nautilus seemingly to save loading times. So if you only change .../scalable/folder.svg it will only apply to the "unused" big and tiny sizes. You will need to see which sizes are still the old icon and replace these too.

    Warning: I think you need to kill nautilus and restart it to refresh changes and also it won't start anymore if it doesn't find a folder.svg file.

    This is the result for size 48 : size 48

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