Where is icon cache

While you are changing the folder options, you may also want to clear the option "Hide extensions for known file types": seeing the file extensions should make it easier to recognize the files that we will encounter along the way.

Don't worry, if you don't like these changes, you can always change them back when you are done. With that out of the way, let's navigate to the folder where Windows keeps the iconcache. Yes, the IconCache.

How do we know? Simple: under Windows 7 and earlier, if you delete this file as described in our previous article , Windows will rebuild it next time it needs to show the icons, and repair any damaged or missing icons.

However, if you do this with Windows 8 or 10, there is no effect on the icons, and if you had any wrong icons displayed on the desktop, they would still be wrong. After looking around a bit, we've solved the mystery. Again, replace [User] with the actual login name of your user account, which is Admin in our example.

In that folder, you should find quite a few files which names begin with iconcache , such as:. Take control of your files and folders with AB Commander file manager for Windows 11, 10, 8. That's the files where Windows 8 and 8. If you scroll down, you should see another group of files with names starting with thumbcache :. You don't have to be a computer geek to figure out that these files are used by Windows to keep the thumbnail cache of the image files.

If you need to repair a corrupted thumbnail of an image file, you need to delete the thumbcache files. Easy, right? Encrypt and password-protect files with Encryptability encryption software for Windows 11,10,8.

Not so easy, actually. If you attempt to delete the iconcache files right within AB Commander or Windows Explorer, Windows will refuse to delete some of them, because the files would still be in use by AB Commander or Explorer!

That's right, Windows cannot delete the files that are in use. To solve this problem, we need to close AB Commander and Windows Explorer, but how would we delete the files then? The Command Prompt to the rescue! In case you don't know, the Command Prompt is a tool where you type commands that you want Windows to do. To open the command prompt window in AB Commander, choose Tools - Command Prompt window from its menu, and it will open the command prompt, already navigated to the folder which was active in ABCommander at the time:.

If you are still not using AB Commander, you can achieve the same the hard way: start the command prompt in whatever way you usually do using the Run command of Windows, for example , and then use the cd command to navigate to the correct folder. When the system boots again this information is stored from the cache so that the system boots fast. Note: If you are using any other version of windows follow the designated path, which mentioned above.

And continue the steps from 5. To rebuild the icon cache database on Windows 10 , close any application that you may be running, and then do the following:. You need to close File Explorer to be able to delete the icon cache files.

The last command in both cases will restart the Windows Explorer process. Notify me of followup comments via e-mail. You can also subscribe without commenting. Leave this field empty. Home About. In Windows 8 and Windows 10, the icon cache file is located in:. To rebuild the icon cache, you have to delete all the iconcache files that appear in this folder. Close and save anything that you are working on before proceeding. Open File Explorer and go to the following folder:. To make sure the command prompt is in the correct folder, type the dir command.

You should see the iconcache and thumbcache files we discussed earlier appear. The Explorer and desktop will disappear. Exit Task Manager and make sure that no other application is running except for the command prompt window. Press Enter. The asterisk after iconcache is necessary to make sure all files with names that start with iconcache will be included in the delete operation.

That should delete all the icon cache files. Run the dir command to check the list of remaining files. If one or more iconcache files are still listed, it means some applications are still running in the background.

Close them and repeat the procedure again, if necessary. But if you have other icon problems, hopefully rebuilding the icon cache will fix them. Browse All iPhone Articles Browse All Mac Articles Do I need one? Browse All Android Articles Browse All Smart Home Articles Customize the Taskbar in Windows Browse All Microsoft Office Articles