Ubuntu – Custom Icons for folders

iconsnautilus

I have several folders which I've changed the default icons using right click > Properties > icon > click and then selecting a image file inside the folder.

That's fine. My /home partition is different from my root "/" partition, which means that I do not erase my personal files when reinstalling a new version of Ubuntu (currently 18.04).

However when I lastly (and previously) updated the OS, all custom icons are gone. I have not changed the /home partitions or anything. I have then, arduously, re-customized the folder icons.

Now that a new version (18.10) is on the way, I wonder what I have to do to preserve the custom icons. I usually do not upgrade using the upgrade tool, because it keeps causing problems. I prefer a fresh install, preserving the /home partition.
A hint is deeply appreciated.

Best Answer

This depends on where you were keeping the icons. If you were keeping them somewhere inside your home directory and not renaming your user, they should stay, but if you are using the files located in /usr/share/ then they might be changing names by the packaging system.

As a test I setup a VM with Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, configured some custom icons I stored in ~/Icons and then upgraded it to 18.04. After upgrading the custom icons were still present.

Custom icons in Ubuntu 16.04 LTS

Custom icons in Ubuntu 18.04 after upgrade

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