How to Change Drive Icon in Windows 11 & 10

Don’t like the default drive icon? You can change it. Here is how to change the drive icon in Windows 11 and 11 operating systems.

In Windows, all plugged-in drives and partitions have the same icon. You can see the drive icon on the File Explorer’s This PC page or the sidebar. Generally, similar drive icons are nothing out of the ordinary. In fact, the drive icons make it easy to identify drives from regular folders, files, and other system components.

However, what if you don’t like or get bored with the default drive icon? In that case, you can change the drive icon in Windows. That way, you can customize the drive and make it look different from other drives. As an added benefit, it provides better usability and makes it easy to identify your favorite drive from others.

Unlike renaming a drive, you must use the ‘autorun.inf’ file to change the drive icon. Sure it is not as simple as renaming a drive, but it is just as easy.

Let me show you how to change the drive icon in Windows 11 and 10 operating systems without ado.

Table of contents:

• Requirements
• Change the drive icon

The steps below work the same in Windows 10 and 11.

Before changing the drive icon

Here are the prerequisites for changing the drive icon.

• You should already have an icon in the ICO file format.
• The icon must be at least 512 by 512 pixels in size.
• If you don’t already have an icon, get one from the internet. Iconarchive.com and iconspedia.com are excellent places to start your search.
• If the icon is in PNG, JPG, or another format, use icoconvert.com to convert it to ICO format.

Change the drive icon in Windows

We must create a new autorun file and add the icon path to set a custom drive icon. For example, I use an entire drive as my downloads folder. So, I can set a new drive icon to that drive by creating the said file and pointing it to the icon file. It doesn’t sound easy, but it is straightforward. Let me show you how.

1. Copy the ICO icon with ‘Ctrl + C.’
2. Paste the icon at the root of the target drive.
3. Right-click in the drive.
4. Select “New > Text document.”
5. Open the text file.
6. Paste the below code in the text file.
   [autorun]
ICON=IconName.ico
7. Replace ‘IconName.ico’ with the actual icon name.
8. Press “Ctrl + S” to save the file.
9. Close the text file.
10. Rename the text file to “autorun.inf.”
11. Close File Explorer.
12. Reboot the computer.
13. With that, the drive icon is changed.

Steps with more details:

First, copy the icon to the root of the drive you want to change or set the new icon. For example, since I wanted to change the D drive icon, I copied the icon to the root of the D drive.

Note: If the icon is in another drive, the process may not work, and you will see a blank icon.

Now, right-click and select “New > Text document” to create a new text file. Next, rename the text file to “autorun.”

Open the text file and paste the following code in it. Don’t forget to replace ‘IconName’ with the actual icon name.

[autorun]
ICON=IconName.ico

Save the file with the “Ctrl + S” shortcut and close it.

After saving the file, rename it from “autorun.txt” to “autorun.inf”. Essentially, you are changing the file format from TXT to INF.

Finally, exit File Explorer and restart the machine. After rebooting, the new drive icon should appear in File Explorer.

Optional steps:

You can hide the icon and autorun files to make things look nicer. To do that, right-click the autorun.inf and icon.ico files individually and select the “Properties” option. Select the “Hidden” checkbox and press the “Ok” button. This will ensure the files won’t normally appear in the regular folder structure.

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That is all. It is that easy to change the drive icon in Windows 11 & 10.

I hope this simple and easy Windows how-to guide helped you.

If you are stuck or need some help, send an email, and I will try to help as much as possible.

If you like this article, read how to create an invisible folder and remove arrow from shortcut icon.