Windows – How to find the location of a shortcut’s icon in Windows 10

windowswindows 10

I have a shortcut on my desktop who's icon I want to use on another shortcut. I see how to set the icon (from properties). However, I don't know the location of the icon. How can I figure out where the icon is located that I want to use?

Here is a screenshot of the properties for the shortcut (Web URL). You can see that if I click the "change icon" button it lists all of the standard available icons but does not point to the icon in the properties windows (Red "A" with black background.)

enter image description here

Best Answer

The information is stored in .url file, which is just a simple text file, in the line "IconFile".

I tried opening an .url file in notepad, but it downloaded the corresponding website instead. So I went via the command line:

  1. Open a "Command Prompt" by typing "cmd" in the start search and selecting "Command Prompt"
  2. Navigate to the location of your .lnk or .url file
  3. Links that are visible on all users' desktops are stored in "C:\Users\Public\Desktop"
  4. Use "type example.url" to show the content of the file.

For example you would find the icon of this .url file in:

C:\Nodejs\nodejs.ico

Sample .url content:

[{000214A0-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}]
Prop3=19,2
[InternetShortcut]
IDList=
IconIndex=0
URL=http://nodejs.org/
IconFile=C:\Nodejs\nodejs.ico
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