Ubuntu – How to assign custom icons to folders

directoryiconsnautilus

How do I assign custom icons to folders, as well as the default folders Desktop, Downloads, Music, etc.? I know that one way is to assign the properties of folders, but I want to assign icons in the same way that are assigned the default folders, so the custom icons will also appear in the Nautilus bookmarks. I've also seen this question >> custom icon in "Places" menu <<, but that is not what I seek.

I want the markers to display custom icons like the dolphin. I know it's possible, because the folder "Desktop", "Documents", "Music" have their own custom icons in bookmarks. How?

Best Answer

Custom icon selection

In the file manager (nautilus):

right click a folder's icon
click on properties in the contextual menu
in the properties window click on the framed icon (top left)
- that should open the dialog to choose a new icon
Pick an icon from /usr/share/icons

the default folder icons are in the Humanity sub-folder.

Custom icon backup & restore

The informations seems to be saved by nautilus in ~/.local/share/gvfs-metadata.

Note that the directory contains lots of other data (emblems and more). As far as I know they are in binary format so I wasn't really able to pinpoint what's really needed in a backup. Still file path of the icons shuld remain exactly the same between backup and restore for this to work

Resource: Ubuntu Forum thread

Related Solutions

Ubuntu – How to add a separator to the Place sidebar in nautilus

This is not ideal but as far as I can see the only option you have short of filing a bug and chasing it through or writing and applying a patch.

Open Nautilus
Browse to a directory that you don't want to bookmark, for example /bin
From the Bookmarks menu click on "Add Bookmark"
Then Right click on the bookmark for /bin and choose "Rename..."
Rename the bookmark to "----------"
Close Nautilus and open it again
you now have something that looks vaguely but not very much like a separator.

EDIT: Looks like there is already a bug filed for this. Add your own point of view here.

Ubuntu – find the Pictures / Music / Downloads folder icons

Finally, I figured it out by myself (or, to be honest, with help from an ArchLinux forum). So, in the sidebar, this special folders are not under "Bookmarks" but under "Computer". To include custom folders in this list, you have to edit ~/.config/user-dirs.dirs.

Here's the content of mine :

# This file is written by xdg-user-dirs-update
# If you want to change or add directories, just edit the line you're
# interested in. All local changes will be retained on the next run
# Format is XDG_xxx_DIR="$HOME/yyy", where yyy is a shell-escaped
# homedir-relative path, or XDG_xxx_DIR="/yyy", where /yyy is an
# absolute path. No other format is supported.
# 
XDG_DESKTOP_DIR="$HOME/Bureau"
XDG_DOWNLOAD_DIR="$HOME/Téléchargements"
XDG_TEMPLATES_DIR="$HOME/Modèles"
XDG_PUBLICSHARE_DIR="$HOME/Public"
XDG_DOCUMENTS_DIR="$HOME/Documents"
XDG_MUSIC_DIR="$HOME/Musique"
XDG_PICTURES_DIR="$HOME/Images"
XDG_VIDEOS_DIR="$HOME/Vidéos"

It happens that the line concerning music had become XDG_MUSIC_DIR="$HOME/ after I had deleted the Music folder.

Once you have filled this file appropriately, most of work is done. But if you have also customized your icons by changing it to usr/share/icons/whatever you may also want to reset the icon to default by right-clicking on the folder icon, then going to Properties, clicking on the icon and pressing "reset" at the bottom of the window.