Ubuntu – Changing the default folder icon

If you want to change the special folder icons (xdg user directories), you'll have to change them by making a custom theme. They are set to a specific name which is provided by the theme, and based on which folders are set as your Music, Documents, Videos, etc… folders.

To set a custom icon name to use from the theme, for the ~/.wine/drive_c folder for example, you can run the following in a terminal:

gvfs-set-attribute ~/.wine/drive_c metadata::custom-icon-name folder-wine

This should make Nautilus use the folder-wine icon. However, this icon will not be used in GTK+ file selectors or other applications. To unset the custom icon name, you can run the following in a terminal:

gvfs-set-attribute -t unset ~/.wine/drive_c metadata::custom-icon-name folder-wine

Note, that if you've previously set a custom icon on the file, within Nautilus directly, you'll have to unset that icon. You can do this by opening the properties dialog for that file in Nautilus, clicking on the button with the icon on it, and choosing "Revert" in the file chooser dialog which opens up.

conversion

You can convert your .png folder file to .svg by using this website

you can upload your image, and see the result.

Easily Convert Bitmaps To Vectors

But if you want to download your svg-image, you need to register. (If you register, you get 2 images for free)

If you want to convert more images then use Potrace tool from inkscape

*it can't convert directly from .png to .svg you first need to convert it to .pnm for better explanation see this answer

• 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".
• 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".
• 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"
• When you log out and come back, your folder icon must be changed.