CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c#windows
Pradip Talaviya
Pradip Talaviya

Reputation: 409

Change Directory (folder) icon using C# programmatically

I want to change icon of particular folder's icons on Windows platform using C#

Upvotes: 1

Views: 3634

Answers (1)

Martin Zikmund
Martin Zikmund

Reputation: 39072

You can update the folder icon by specifying it in the desktop.ini file

private static void ApplyFolderIcon(string targetFolderPath, string iconFilePath)
{
    var iniPath = Path.Combine(targetFolderPath, "desktop.ini");
    if (File.Exists(iniPath))
    {
        //remove hidden and system attributes to make ini file writable
        File.SetAttributes(
           iniPath, 
           File.GetAttributes(iniPath) & 
           ~( FileAttributes.Hidden | FileAttributes.System) );
    }

    //create new ini file with the required contents
    var iniContents = new StringBuilder()
        .AppendLine("[.ShellClassInfo]")
        .AppendLine($"IconResource={iconFilePath},0")
        .AppendLine($"IconFile={iconFilePath}")
        .AppendLine("IconIndex=0")
        .ToString();
    File.WriteAllText(iniPath, iniContents);

    //hide the ini file and set it as system
    File.SetAttributes(
       iniPath, 
       File.GetAttributes(iniPath) | FileAttributes.Hidden | FileAttributes.System );
    //set the folder as system
    File.SetAttributes(
        targetFolderPath, 
        File.GetAttributes(targetFolderPath) | FileAttributes.System );
}

If you now right-click the folder, you will see that the icon is updated. It might take a while before the change is applied in the file explorer as well.

I have been trying to find a way to apply the changes immediately, but so far without luck. There is a SHChangeNotify shell function that should do just that, but it doesn't seem to work with folders.

Note we have to remove the System and Hidden attributes from the ini file in the beginning, otherwise File.WriteAllText will fail because you don't have permissions to modify it.

Upvotes: 10

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