How to change the icon for a specific file type in Windows

In Windows XP, it was easy to change the icon for any type of file, the next versions of Windows only allow you to change the icon of a shortcut or folder. In today’s article, we’ll look at how to change icons for a specific file type.

When you choose to open a specific file with a specific program, all files of this type change the icon to the one set for the opening program. For example, in Windows 10, by default, all jpg images are opened in the “Photos” program, respectively, all jpg images have the same icon as the “Photos” application itself. If you make jpg images open by default in the “Microsoft .. Picture Manager” – they will all change their icon to the one set for the “Picture Manager …”. In today’s article, we will look at how to change the icon for a specific file type without changing the program that opens them. To complete this instruction we need a free utility “FileTypesMan”, it does not require installation and comes without various gifts in the form of additional software. With its help you can set any icon for any type of file.

Download and unzip FileTypesMan.

1. Go to the site nirsoft.net (to open a link to the site – you need to left-click on the words highlighted in red) => after scrolling through the page almost to the very bottom, you need to select a program for your system. If you have 32-bit Windows – press the left key on Download FileTypesMan, if you have 64-bit Windows – press the left key on Download FileTypesMan for x64. If you do not know what bit depth your system is – first look at the instructions 32-bit or 64-bit Windows ?.

2. Open the archive (in order to open the archive, the archiver must be installed on the system), which was downloaded in the previous paragraph. Extract the content to any place convenient for you, it does not matter which folder you select, the main thing is that you find everything later.

3.Open the folder where you extracted the contents of the archive and run the FileTypesMan.exe application. The application will not be installed, it will start immediately and you can change the icon for any type of file.

Change the icon of a specific file type.

This utility works the same in all versions of Windows.

1.After opening the program in the middle of the window, drag the slider with the left key to the right, when you see a column with the name “Default icon” click on it with the left mouse button. This will sort the lines so that file types with the same icon appear in order.

2. On the top bar of the program, open the search (you can also press Ctrl + F).

3. Enter the extension of the file type icon for which you want to change and click “Find Next”. In this example, we are looking for jpg images and will change the icon for them.

4. Right-click on the found extension and select “Edit selected file type” in the menu that appears.

5. Left-click on the three dots opposite the line with the inscription “Default icon”.

6. In this window you can select any icon from the standard ones or click on “Browse” and find the desired icon.

7. Icons can be downloaded from the Internet and selected in this window, you can also find an application that has an icon that you like. The utility allows you to select icons from EXE, DLL, ICO. For example, I have one application on my computer with an icon that I want to install for a certain file type – in this window I find this application, select it and click “Open”.