How to rebuild a broken icon cache in windows 10

Windows 10 Recycle Bin missing from desktop or from File Explorer? This post explains why Recycle Bin disappeared and covers a few methods to restore the missing Recycle Bin on Windows 10. You can also learn how to restore permanently files from emptied Recycle Bin with a professional file recovery tool.

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Issue: Windows 10 Recycle Bin Missing

User case: “I have been looking for Recycle Bin on Windows 10 since the day it was upgraded. I can not find it anywhere on my laptop. All I come across is CDF-MS file titled $recycle.bin.cdf-ms of 564 bytes. I double-click and try to open but nothing works. Where is my recycle bin and why is it missing?” – A user question in answers.microsoft.com

When you have a new computer or reinstall Windows, by default, Windows 10 Recycle Bin, as well as My Computer (or This PC) should appear in the top left corner of the desktop, letting you access it quickly.

However, sometimes, the Recycle Bin icon is missing from the desktop and you have no idea where is the Recycle Bin in Windows 10. If you are looking for the disappeared Recycle Bin, the methods below can help you find it.

Why Does Windows 10 Recycle Bin Icon Disappear

If the Recycle Bin is missing from your Windows 10 computer, the reasons may be as follows:

The Recycle Bin icon was not added to the desktop
Mistakenly delete the Recycle Bin icon
Windows updates cause Recycle Bin disappeared
Tablet Mode is enabled on Windows 10 PC
Malware or virus infection

Take the following solutions to restore the missing Recycle Bin to your desktop.

Add Recycle Bin to Desktop in Desktop Icon Settings

Finish the below steps to add Recycle Bin icon to your Windows 10 desktop.

Step 1. Go to Settings and click “Personalization”.

Step 2. Click “Themes” and then choose “Desktop icon settings”.

Step 3. On the Desktop Icon Settings screen, check “Recycle Bin”, then select “Apply > OK”. Then, you should see the Recycle Bin icon displayed on your desktop.

You can also hide Recycle Bin from the desktop on Windows 10 by unchecking the Recycle Bin box.

Turn Off Tablet Mode on Windows 10 PC

If the Tablet Mode is turned on on Windows 10, the desktop icons may not display, including Recycle Bin. You can try to turn off the Tablet Mode and make the Recycle Bin appear.

Step 1. Press Windows + I keys to open “Settings”. Then, click “System”.

Step 2. Click “Tablet Mode” on the left pane.

Step 3. On the Tablet Mode screen, toggle off “Hide app icons on the taskbar in tablet mode” and “Automatically hide the taskbar in tablet mode”.

Create Recycle Bin Shortcut from $RECYCLE.BIN

If you removed the Recycle Bin shortcut from the desktop, you can follow the way below to recreate a Recycle Bin icon by using the $RECYCLE.BIN folder.

As the $RECYCLE.BIN is a system-protected folder, which is hidden by default, you need to make it shown on your Windows 10 PC.

Steps to Show Hidden $RECYCLE.BIN

Step 1. Press Win + E keys to open File Explorer. Click the “View” tab.

Step 2. Choose “Options”, and click “Change folder and search option”.

Step 3. Click the “View” tab, under Advanced settings, scroll down to select “Select Show hidden files, folders, and drives”. Then, uncheck “Hide protected operating system files(Recommended)”.

Step 4. Click “Apply” and “OK” to keep the changes.

Steps to Create Recycle Bin Shortcut on Desktop

Step 1. Go back to File Explorer, click “This PC > C drive”.

Step 2. Find $RECYCLE.BIN folder. Right-click it > click “Send to” > click “Desktop (create shortcut)”.

Step 3. Go to your desktop, then you will find Recycle Bin icon there.

Open Missing Windows 10 Recycle Bin in File Explorer

You can find Recycle Bin in File Explorer.

Press Win + E keys to open File Explorer. Click the > icon in the address bar. In the drop-down menu, choose “Recycle Bin”.

Recover Missing Recycle Bin Using Windows PowerShell

Check how to display Recycle Bin by using command lines in Windows PowerShell.

Step 1. Click the Search button, and type PowerShell.

Step 2. Right-click Windows PowerShell from search results, and choose “Run as administrator”.

Step 3. Type shell:RecycleBinFolder and press Enter. Then, the Recycle Bin window will occur on your screen.

Recover Deleted Files from Recycle Bin on Windows 10

If you have restored the disappeared Recycle Bin on Windows 10 with the way above, but find that the files you need are missing from the Recycle Bin, how can you retrieve lost files?

Try using ultimate Windows data recovery software – EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard to help you restore deleted files from Recycle Bin.

What can EaseUS data recovery software do?

Restore lost files from HDD, SSD, USB flash drive, external hard drive, SD card, camera, etc.
Recover deleted emails, photos, videos audio, music, and documents from any storage
Restore files from formatted, inaccessible, or corrupted storage devices
Recover files on Windows 10/8/7/Vista/XP, Windows Server, and macOS 11.2

Now, free download this file recovery software to restore lost data from Recycle Bin.

Step 1. To specifically recover files from emptied Recycle Bin on Windows 11/10/8/7, hover the mouse pointer over the “Recycle Bin” option under the “Locations” section and click “Scan”.

Step 2. EaseUS data recovery software will start a quick scan immediately for all deleted files, and later a deep scan will launch automatically to scan more lost files. After the scanning process, you can use the “Filter” feature to select a specific file type, such as Pictures, Word, videos, etc.

Step 3. Once you locate the files you want to restore, you can double-click it for a full preview. Then, select the target files and click “Recover”. We suggest you select a different volume or an external USB drive to save the recovered files to avoid data overwriting.

To Sum Up

You may try the methods provided in this article to fix Windows 10 Recycle Bin missing problem. After Recycle Bin recovery, you can apply EaseUS data recovery program to get back the lost files from Recycle Bin in simple steps.

Rahul Saigal is a technology writer with a half-decade of experience covering everything from software tips to productivity solutions. He’s written many approachable articles, in-depth tutorials, and even eBooks. Read more.

The icons that Windows uses for your documents and programs are saved in an icon cache, so they can be displayed quickly instead of having to slowly load them every time. If you ever have problems with the icons on your computer, rebuilding the icon cache might help.

Sometimes the icon cache gets out of date, causing icons to display incorrectly, or even go missing. For example, maybe you upgraded an application and the new version came with a new icon, but you still see the old icon on the desktop. Sometimes a blank or damaged icon may appear when a perfectly good icon was displayed before. When this happens, you have to reset the icon cache and let them automatically re-create it. In this article, we’ll show you how to rebuild the icon cache in Windows 10. This guide also applies to Windows 8 and 7, but the process works slightly different.

How the Icon Cache Works in Windows

Icons are everywhere in Windows: the Control Panel, Programs and Features, File Explorer, and so on. Having to retrieve all possible icon images from hard disk and to render them dynamically can consume lots of system resources. As a result, Windows save icons it’s already retrieved in its memory. When you shut down or restart, it will write this cache to a hidden file on your hard drive, so it doesn’t have to reload all those icons later.

The database file grows as more information is added to it. According to this document from MSDN knowledgebase , when Windows needs to display an icon, it’ll check the cache, and display the cached icon if a match is found. If it doesn’t find one, it’ll check the executable file and scan the application directory.

Caching mechanisms, such as the IconCache database, have been already discussed by multiple system specialists, and in depth by Mark E. Russinovich and David A. Solomon in their Windows Internals book, if you’re curious to learn more, but the basics are all you need to understand for this process.

Where the Icon Cache Is Stored

In Windows Vista and Windows 7, the icon cache file is located in:

(Replace with the actual login name for your Windows account.)

This file is still present in Windows 8 and 10, but Windows does not use them to store the icon cache. In Windows 8 and Windows 10, the icon cache file is located in:

(Replace with the actual login name for your Windows account.) In this folder, you will find a number of icon cache files:
• iconcache_16.db
• iconcache_32.db
• iconcache_48.db
• iconcache_96.db
• iconcache_256.db
• iconcache_768.db
• iconcache_1280.db
• iconcache_1920.db
• iconcache_2560.db
• iconcache_custom_stream.db
• iconcache_exif.db
• iconcache_idx.db
• iconcache_sr.db
• iconcache_wide.db
• iconcache_wide_alternate.db

How to Rebuild the Icon Cache

Close and save anything that you are working on before proceeding. Open File Explorer and go to the following folder:

(Replace with the actual login name for your Windows account.)

Press and hold the “Shift” key and right-click on the Explorer folder. Select “Open command window here.”

A command prompt window will open at that path:

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.

Right-click on the Windows taskbar and choose “Task Manager” from the shortcut menu.

Right-click on “Windows Explorer” in the list and choose “End task” from the shortcut menu. The Explorer and desktop will disappear. Exit Task Manager and make sure that no other application is running except for the command prompt window.

In the command prompt window type the following command:

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.

Now press the Ctrl+Alt+Del keys simultaneously, and choose “Sign off.” Sign back in, and any out-of-date or missing icons should hopefully get repaired or re-created.

Remember, rebuilding the icon cache will not help with thumbnails issues (you’ll need to go through this process to do that), the wrong icon for a specific file extension, or a missing shortcut icon. But if you have other icon problems, hopefully rebuilding the icon cache will fix them.

Rebuilding icon cache is a nice way to fix Windows icon issues such as a broken icon. In this post from the MiniTool Partition Wizard, you can figure out how to rebuild icon cache Windows 11/10.

What does Icon Cache Do

In Windows 11/10, there is an icon cache database that stores copies of each icon handy, which enables the operating system to display various types of files icons very quickly.

As more and more files go to the database, the icon cache database might get corrupted. When the database is corrupted, you might find that some icons get broken. To solve the problem, you usually need to rebuild icon cache.

How to Rebuild Icon Cache Windows 11/10

Whether you are using Windows 11 or Windows 10, you can try the following methods to rebuild icon cache.

Method 1: Rebuild Icon Cache Windows 11/10 via File Explorer

File Explorer is a built-in tool in Windows 11 and 10. It is mainly used to manage files and folders. Here I’d like to show you how to rebuild icon cache using File Explorer.

Step 1: Press the Windows key along with the E key to open File Explorer.

Step 2: Navigate to the following location: C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer. You can just copy the location and paste it to the address bar to find it quickly.

Step 3: Delete all the files beginning with iconcache. Then you will see a new folder named IconCacheToDelete.

Step 4: Restart your computer and the IconCacheToDelete folder will disappear.

Method 2: Rebuild Icon Cache Windows 11/10 using Command Prompt

Alternatively, you can rebuild icon cache Windows 10/11 using Command Prompt, a built-in command-line interpreter that can be used to manage your computer in many aspects.

In the following content, you can learn how to perform icon cache rebuild on Windows 11/10 with Command Prompt.

Step 1: Press Win + S to open the Windows Search utility. Then search for Command Prompt and run it as administrator.

Step 2: In Command Prompt, input the commands below one by one and press Enter after each:

cd /d %userprofile%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer
attrib –h iconcache_*.db
del iconcache_*.db start explorer

Step 3: Restart your computer.

Further Tip: Rebuild Thumbnail Cache with Command Prompt

Windows thumbnails are the small images you see when you access a folder of pictures. Similar to the icon cache, the thumbnails cache database stores those thumbnails so you can view them quickly. When the thumbnails cache doesn’t work properly, some thumbnails might get broken, white, or black.

To solve thumbnail issues, you can rebuild thumbnail cache with Command Prompt. And here are the detailed steps:

Step 1: Run Command Prompt as an administrator.

Step 2: In Command Prompt, input the listed commands one by one. Remember to press Enter after each command:

cd /d %userprofile%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer
attrib –h thumbcache_*.db
del thumbcache_*.db

Step 3: Restart your computer and the thumbnail cache will be rebuilt.

That’s all about how to rebuild icon cache on Windows 11/10. You can have a try when your Windows icons go wrong. Hope it is helpful for you. You can share your experiences and ideas with us by posting them in the following comment section.

Do you like to play games? Do you clear cache files often? How to clear cache on PS4, Xbox and PC? You can follow the step-by-step guide here.

The icons that Windows uses for your documents and programs are saved in the icon cache, so you can display them quickly without having to load them slowly every time. If there are problems with the icons on your computer, rebuilding the icon cache may help.

Why or When do I need to rebuild the icon cache

Sometimes, if the icon cache is outdated, the icon may be displayed incorrectly or even lost. For example, when you upgrade an application, this new version comes with a new icon, but the old icon is still displayed on the desktop. The icons normally displayed before may sometimes be blank or damaged. At this time, we need to rebuild the icon cache to solve the above problems. In this article, we will show you how to rebuild the icon cache in Windows 10 to solve the problem of icon corruption. This guide also applies to Windows 8 and Windows 7.

How to rebuild the Windows icon cache

To rebuild the icon cache, you have to delete all the icon cache files that appear in this folder. It’s not as simple as clicking on them and pressing Delete, though: those files are still in use by Explorer, so you can’t just delete them normally.
Please refer to the following steps, run the iconcache deletion command.
1. Press Win + s to launch the search window
2. Type command prompt in the search window

3. Right-click on Command Prompt and choose Run as administrator

4. Past the following commands and press Enter after each command:

ie4uinit.exe -show
taskkill /IM explorer.exe /F
DEL /A /Q “%localappdata%IconCache.db”
DEL /A /F /Q “%localappdata%MicrosoftWindowsExplorericoncache*”
shutdown /r /f /t 00

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Introduction: How to Rebuild Icon Cache in Windows 10 (White Icons on Desktop)

This video will show you how to rebuild the item cache in Windows 10 and fix blank white icons on the desktop that have become corrupted.

1. Press the windows key + r to bring up the run menu and type %appdata% and press ok.

2. This will take you to the roaming data folder and you will need to go back a folder and open up the local folder, press the view button on the top and show hidden items.

3. Now delete the IconCache and empty the recycle bin.

4. Restart the pc (may take longer due to rebuild of file) and check in the local appdata file to see if the IconCache has been replaced.

Method 2:

1. Close all explorer windows that are open
2. launch taskmanager using ctrl+shift+esc 3. In the process tap, right click on the explorer.exe process and end process. 4. From the file menu select new task and type cmd.exe and press ok. 5. Now in command prompt type the following line by line and hit enter:

CD /d %userprofile%\AppData\Local

DEL IconCache.db /a

6.Now in task manager select file and new task.

7. Type explorer.exe and click ok

8. You may need to refresh the desktop and the best way to do this is to click on your desktop background and press F5 which will refresh.

I am not responsible for anything that happens on your machine and these tutorials are to be used at your own risk. If in doubt contact an IT professional.

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2 Comments

You can just type %localappdata% in the RUN dialog instead of typing %appdata% and going back.

this didn’t work for use, and neither did a myriad of other answers but I wanted to share our fix, so others can know about it if they are searching today in the 2019 1709 WIN10 era.

I googled searched, Windows 10 desktop icons all white. In our enterprise, we had all the icons on desktops go white, inclduing on start menus and task bar. NOT one fix we could google fixed this issue. .dbcache rebuilds, thumbnail rebuilds, powershell fixes, reupdating all programs. The only fix most people settled on was a PC reset or reinstall.

Note this is on Enterprise WIN10 1709 the 30month supported version, so NO at this time updating to another version isn’t an acceptable option (even though thats what MS will tell you if you go that route).

We finally figured out the solution though. If you are having the same issue then try this.
I had go to spiceworkds via this thread

Open regedit, and go to [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\lnkfile\shellex\IconHandler]

If your only thing in iconhandler folder is (defualt) and the value is set to : That is your problem. It is a known issue with 1709 but interestingly we couldn’t find it online.
Change the value to

Tip / Trick

The icons that your Windows system uses for your programs and documents are stored in an icon cache, so they can be quickly displayed whenever you need them instead they load slowly. In the case if you are having some issues or difficulties with icons on your system than rebuilding the icon cache is the solution to your problem.

Sometimes the icon cache on your computer may become corrupted, and it may cause the icons of files on your system to display distorted or incorrectly. When this type if issue occurs then you need to delete the icon cache to reset it and recreate it automatically.

How does the Icon Cache work in Windows System?

There are icons everywhere in your system: File Explorer, the control panel, Programs and Features, and many others. It can take a lot of your computer system resources to retrieve all icon images from your hard disk and to yield them dynamically.

As more information is added to the database, the database file grows accordingly. When your Windows system wants to display an icon, first it will check the cache in your windows, and then it will show the cached icon if it’s match is found in the cache. If it is unable to locate the one, then it will check the executable file directory of your system and scan the application directory on your system.

Where Is the Icon Cache Stored?

What you have to do is that you’ll have to delete all icon cache files which you can see in the corresponding folder to rebuild icon cache in your system. It is not as simple as you are thinking that just by clicking on them and pressing Delete button will delete them but those files are still used by your Windows system Explorer, so you are unable to remove those files usually.

How to Rebuild the Icon Cache?

Before proceeding any further, save and close anything that you are working on.

Steps to Rebuild Icon Cache:

Open File Explorer window and navigate to the following folder path:

Now just press & hold the “Shift” key on your system’s keyboard and right-click on the Explorer folder. Now select “Open command window here” option.
After performing above step, a command prompt window will open at the path mentioned below

Just to be sure, type in dir command into your command prompt window and press enter. Now a list of all the icon cache files is displayed on the command prompt screen that we have discussed earlier.
Now you have to open the Task Manager. To open task manager, you simply have to right-click on Windows Taskbar option and click on the option that says Task Manager.
In the list of processes, look for Windows Explorer. Right click the process and select and select End Task option. Now Explorer and desktop will disappear. Exit your Task Manager and make sure that no other applications are running on your system except the command prompt.
Now type the following command in your command prompt window of your system:
The asterisk (*) at the end of iconcache ensures that all the files that are starting with iconcache name are included and are deleted.
Now use the dir command one more to view the files that are in the folder. If any more files are displayed, it means that in the background some of the applications are still running. Close all of the requests and repeat the command (del iconcache*) again.
Now press CTRL+ALT+DEL keys at once and choose “Sign Off” option.

When you “Sign in” back then any missing or outdated icons are re-created or hopefully they are repaired.

This is how you can resolve your issue in just a few simple and easy steps.

From time to time, the Windows icon cache can become corrupt or broken. In those situations, the icon will turn black or shows black background behind the icons. If that’s the case, clear icon cache in Windows. Here’s how.

Generally, Windows dynamically builds the icon cache as needed. Once the icons are built, they are stored in a cache database folder. The next time you visit the same folder, Windows can just show the icons from the cache. Showing icons from cache is much faster than dynamically generating theme.

However, there will be times when Windows shows a black icon or black background behind the actual icon. This happens because either the icon cache database is broken or corrupt. The good thing is, you can clear and rebuild icon cache with a few simple steps.

So, without further ado, let me show you how it’s done.

Clear Icon Cache and Rebuild It

Though we are using big words like database, all you have to do is delete a few cache files and Windows will automatically rebuild the icon cache as and when needed.

However, there is one catch. Since icon cache files are actively used by the File Explorer, we cannot delete them directly from the File Explorer. Rather, we need to use a couple of commands. It’s pretty easy. Just follow the steps as is and you will be good.

1. First, open the start menu, search for “Command Prompt” and select the “Run as Administrator” option. You can also select the same option by right-clicking on the Command Prompt result.

2. In the Command Prompt window, use the below command to go the folder where the icon cache files are stored.

Related: Wondering what’s the %homepath% in the above command? It’s an environment variable. Here’s a list of useful Windows environment variables.

3. Since the File Explorer is actively using the icon cache files, we first need to stop File Explorer. To do that, use the below command. Don’t worry when your screen goes blank. It’s completely normal.

4. After stopping File Explorer, we can safely delete the icon cache files. Execute the below command to do so.

The above command will only delete the icon cache files. Once deleted, you will not see any message as long as there is no error.

5. Finally, restart explorer using the below command.

Wrapping Up

That is all. It is that simple to clear icon cache in Windows 10 or other versions of Windows. As I said before, you don’t have to manually rebuild the cache. Windows will dynamically generally the cache when you first visit a folder.

Hope that helps. If you are stuck or need some help, comment below and I will try to help as much as possible.

The icons are what allow us to easily identify all the programs, and files, that we have on the PC. Each program has its own icon, as well as the folders and even each of the shortcuts that we create on the PC. Each program has its own icon, which is usually inside the executable or in an .ico file next to it. And the shortcuts normally use this same icon, although we can choose if we want to give it our own. And although all the icons can be beautiful, surely we have seen how some disappear, breaking the aesthetics of the system. This is due to a problem with their cache .

Loading all the icons constantly on the system would result in a considerable loss of performance. Therefore, instead of having to load these icons all the time, Windows 10 makes use of what is known as the ” icon cache “. This cache is like a small database within which it stores each of the icons and leaves them associated with a specific file.

Since the days of Windows 95, the icon cache is frequently corrupted. For this reason, it is very easy to find that, suddenly, some icons appear next to applications that do not correspond, or how some programs appear with the typical “generic icon” in white.

Failure of the Windows 10 icon cache is inevitable. But if we know the right tricks we will be able to repair it, in seconds, without even having to restart the PC.

A simple command to reset the icon cache in Windows 10

Windows 10 includes a tool that allows us to reset the icon cache very quickly and in a very simple way: ie4uinit. To do this, all we have to do is open a “Run” window in Windows with the Win + R keyboard shortcut (or by typing “run” in the search bar) and type the following in it:

We will instantly see how the entire icon cache is cleared (we will notice that all the icons disappear), and immediately all these icons reappear. And now they will be well associated.

How to do it in versions prior to Windows 10

If instead of Windows 10 we are using a previous version of the operating system, such as 8, 7 and even Windows XP, this tool is still present in the operating system, only the parameter is different. Instead of adding “show” to the end, we will have to execute it in the following way:

Likewise, the entire cache will be cleared and rebuilt, thus ending any problems that may arise with Windows icons.

Reset the icon database with CMD

If for some reason the previous command does not work for us, we can also resort to other simple tricks that, broadly speaking, will allow us to do the same. At the end of the day, all this is based on eliminating the file “IconCache.db” that is inside the AppData / Local directory of the personal folder.

To do it from CMD, for example, what we have to do is open a terminal window, with Administrator permissions, and execute the following commands, one after the other:

taskkill / IM explorer.exe / F
CD / d% userprofile% / AppData / Local
DEL IconCache.db / a

After executing the third command, the icon cache file will have been removed from the PC. Now, the only thing left to do is open the Windows 10 task manager (Control + Shift + Esc) and open a new instance of “explorer.exe” so that it reloads the browser, the desktop, and regenerates. the icon database.

Reset icon cache with a double click

What if I have the same problem very often do I have to run all of this by hand? If we want to automate everything, and have a direct access at hand that allows us to restore this database, we will be able to do it very easily.

From ie4uinit

The ie4uinit file is an executable that we can open, if we want, with a double click . What happens is that, without its parameter, it does nothing. Therefore, a trick to always have it at hand is to manually create a shortcut and in the “directory” section, enter the command that we have seen before.

We give it the name we want and that’s it. Now, whenever we want, we can run this shortcut to automatically clean the icon cache.

From CMD

If we want to automate the CMD commands, we can create a simple batch script that allows us to execute all these commands simply by double clicking. To do this, we will open a Windows Notepad window and write in it the commands that we have seen in the previous point.

We save the document with a “.bat” extension so that it becomes a CMD executable and that’s it. Now, whenever we want, we can run this new file (with always administrator permissions) to also clean the Windows 10 icon cache.

Of course, after executing this shortcut it is likely that we will have to rerun “explorer.exe” by hand from the Windows Task Manager.

Programs to fix problems with the Windows icon cache

In addition to all the previous tricks that we have just seen, there are also special programs to carry out this task easily. One of the simplest and fastest that we can find is Thumbnail and Icon Cache Rebuilder . This program allows us to very easily erase the Windows 10 icon cache, as well as the thumbnail cache where, among other things, the thumbnails of all the photos and images that we save on the PC are saved.

Simply by downloading the program, unzipping it and running it we can carry out the cleaning with one click. After clearing either of the two caches, it will automatically regenerate again. This will end the problems when it comes to seeing the icons.

This program only works in Windows 10. Therefore, if we are users of any of the previous versions of the system (7, 8 or 8.1), then we will have to download the appropriate version of this same software, Icon Cache Rebuilder , to be able to carry carry out this task. But this program is much more limited than that of Windows 10, and it will force us to restart the computer after its execution.

The icon cache / temporary storage under Windows can lead to incorrect shortcut icons, here is the solution for deleting / resetting the icon cache on Windows 11, 10, . etc.!

Please use the Disk Cleanup Manager as the fastest way / solution to delete thumbnails and icon cache in Windows! The icons are also saved in the thumbnail cache!

1.) . Clear the icon cache using the disk cleanup!
2.) . automatically delete icon cache via batch file!
3.) . Why the icon cache on Windows 11, 10, . etc?

1.) Clear the icon cache using the disk cleanup!

1. Simply use the key combination Windows + R

2. Enter the command cleanmgr confirm it with the Enter key or the [OK] button

3. And simply select the drive C:\
(PS: The drive selection only appears if you have several Drives)

4. Select unnecessary files and thumbnails!

5. Confirm the cleanup with the [OK] button

Then restart Windows or simply as described here: ►► Restart the File Explorer Not everyone knows and uses the disk cleanup with which you can clean the icon clipboard / cache in the regular way!

(Image-1) Empty or reset icon cache on Windows 11, 10, etc.!

2.) Automatically delete icon cache via batch file!

taskkill /IM explorer.exe /F
CD /d %LocalAppData%\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer
DEL Icon*.db /a
timeout /t 2
Start explorer.exe

And save it as Icon-Cache-Batch-File.bat on the desktop!

Or simply download: ►► Icon-Cache-Batch-File.bat.zip to place on the desktop

(Image-2) Clear icon cache via a batch file!

3.) Why the icon cache on Windows 11, 10, . etc?

To speed up the display of thumbnails, the system uses a special cache file that is located in the hidden directory of the user profile. In cases where the cache file is corrupted, it will show incorrect thumbnails of your files in Windows Explorer and also incorrect icons / symbols, making it very annoying. The system can fix this by clearing the cache of thumbnails and icons using the system tool described above.

If your icons appear blank or look corrupted or do not refresh correctly, when they should, then it is quite possible that your icon cache database may have become corrupted on your Windows 11/10 PC. The same thing applies to Thumbnails too. If they do not display correctly, then they may have become corrupted. In such a scenario, you may need to delete the cache files in order to rebuild the Icon cache and clear the Thumbnail cache.

This post will show you the location of these cache files so that you can delete IconCache.db and thumbcache .db files, in order to rebuild the Icon cache and clear the Thumbnail cache in Windows 11/10.

Rebuild Icon Cache in Windows 11/10

The Icon Cache or IconCache.db is a special database file that Windows utilizes to keep copies of each icon handy. When Windows needs to draw an icon, it uses the copy from the cache instead of retrieving the icon image from the original application file. This helps in making Windows draw the icons faster. Things were different in Windows XP, and they are different in Windows 7/8. Things changed again from Windows 8.1 onwards. In Windows 11/10, you need to do the following.

If you needed to rebuild the Icon Cache in Windows 7/8, you needed to do the following:

Open File Explorer > Folder Options > Views to show Hidden System Files.
Next, go to C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local folder
Delete the hidden IconCache.db file. Reboot.
This action would purge and rebuild the icon cache.

But this is not enough in Windows 11, Windows 10 or Windows 8.1. You will have to navigate to the following folder:

Here you will see a lot of files like iconcache_32.db, iconcache_48. db , iconcache_96.db, iconcache_256.db, iconcache_1024.db, iconcache_1280.db, iconcache_1600. db , iconcache_1920.db, iconcache_2560. db , iconcache_exif.db, iconcache_idx.db, iconcache_sr. db , iconcache_wide.dd, iconcache_wide_alternate. db , etc.

Delete them all to purge and rebuild your icon cache in Windows 10. If you were to be able to delete some of them, you would now be able to see a new folder created named IconcacheToDelete, which will disappear when you reboot your computer or restart Windows File Explorer.

If you find that you are unable to delete these files, do the following.

First, close all open programs. Next, open Task Manager, look for the process Windows Explorer, right-click on it and select End process. Next, from the File menu > select Run new task. Type cmd .exe , check the Create this task with administrative privileges box and press Enter.

This will open an elevated command prompt window.

Now type the following commands one after the other and hit Enter:

This will rebuild your icon cache in Windows 11/10.

TIP: See how you can stop Windows from deleting the Thumbnail cache on every shutdown, restart or boot.

Clear Thumbnail cache in Windows 11/10

Windows Thumbnail cache or Thumbs.db files are hidden data-files in the Windows operating system, which contain small images, displayed when you view a folder in “thumbnail” view, as opposed to tile, icon, list, or detail view. Windows keeps a copy of all your pictures, video and document thumbnails so that they can be displayed quickly when you open a folder. In Windows XP you see these ‘hidden’ files thumbs. db files scattered all over the place. In Windows Vista and later, the thumbnails ‘thumbcache’ are stored at C:\Users\Owner\AppData\Local\Microsoft Windows\Explorer – which is the same where the icon cache files are stored.

If you want to delete and clear the Thumbnail cache, you will have to follow the same procedure as mentioned above, but finally, use these commands:

Please let us know if this worked for you and helped you resolve your problem.

TIP: FixWin 11 for Windows 11/10 lets you reset the thumbnail cache. You will find the fix under the System fixes tab.

Windows 10 users may want to use Thumbnail and Icon Cache Rebuilder, which lets you purge and rebuild Thumbnail & Icon Cache in a click.

If your desktop or explorer icons load slowly when they start the Windows PC, you may want to increase Icon Cache size and see if it helps you. See this post if your Desktops icons are slow to load.

JamieKavanagh

Commendable

All that prettiness that we enjoy on our Windows 10 desktop is made all the better by the icons used to indicate apps and programs. Those icons are controlled by the icon cache. If something goes wrong with that cache, the desktop may not display properly and you will have to rebuild it. Here’s how to rebuild a broken icon cache in Windows 10.

The icon cache is a mini database that is held in memory and then written to disk when you send the computer to sleep or switch it off. Databases are delicate creatures and can easily be broken or corrupted by growing too large or just by rebooting your computer. Here’s how to fix it.

Rebuild a broken icon cache in Windows 10
Some files may be in use within Windows so we have to delete them in a specific way.

1. Navigate to the Explorer folder on your C: drive.
2. Right click on Explorer and select ‘Open command window here’.
3. Type or paste ‘dir’ to ensure you’re in the right place. You should see your iconcache files.
4. Right click on the Windows taskbar and select Task Manager.
5. Select Windows Explorer within Task Manager and then End task.
6. Type or paste ‘del iconcache*’ into the CMD window.
7. Type or paste ‘dir’ to make sure the iconcache files are gone.
8. Sign out and then back into Windows or reboot your machine. Your desktop should now return to normal.

Easy fix for an annoying issue hitting Windows 10 as well

The system tray area is an important part of the desktop, as it shows you the apps that are running minimized without eating up space on the taskbar.

This Windows feature has been there forever, and it is one of the things many people wouldn’t be able to use the operating system without at all.

I personally use the system tray without hiding any icons there, as I always want to have quick access to apps running in the background. Plus, I like to keep things organized on my desktop, so the system tray is basically the home of just a handful of apps on my computer.

Windows 10, however, appears to be suffering from a system tray issue that I remember being experienced more often in the Windows Vista days.

Basically, some icons in the tray no longer show up, though they are still there and eat up a blank space without actually letting you do anything. In some cases, clicking this empty space actually brings forward the options that the app icon would normally display, only that the icon itself isn’t available.

Fortunately, fixing this bug is quite easy and the same workaround as on the other Windows version does the trick here too.

The first step is to actually create a backup of your system because the hack involves making changes to the Windows Registry, so if something goes wrong, system stability could be impacted.

Launch the Windows Registry Editor by simply clicking the Start menu and typing regedit.exe. You can also create a backup of the Windows Registry from File > Export. Then, navigate to the following path:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\TrayNotify If you’re running Windows 10 version 1803 (April 2018 Update) or newer, you can just copy the path above and paste it into the address bar in the Registry Editor.

What you need to do here is to delete two registry entries called IconStreams and PastIconsStream. If just one of them exist, that’s fine, remove it and you’re good to go.

Next, you can just reboot the system, but Microsoft recommends killing the explorer.exe process and then re-launching it. Once the system tray icons load, the aforementioned registry items that you just deleted should be recreated automatically.

To kill the explorer.exe process, press CTRL + Shift + mouse right click on the Taskbar and click the option that reads Exit Explorer. You should notice that the taskbar goes away, leaving you with a desktop that has no taskbar.

Next, press CTRL + Alt + Delete and then go to the Task Manager and click on File > Run New Task. Type explorer.exe and hit OK, and the taskbar should be reloaded, with the icons in the system tray area also showing up.

If everything was done correctly, the tray icons should be now displayed correctly after the said registry items are recreated.

In Windows 10, you can configure which icons to show up in the system tray right from the Settings app. The options that let you do this are available at the following location:

Settings > Personalization > Taskbar > Select which icons appear on the taskbar Clicking the Always show all icons in the notification area toggle will remove the little arrow in the system tray hiding inactive icons and instead show you all icons here.

If the same issue keeps reappearing on your Windows 10 system, you can perform the workaround as many times you want, though in this case you should also investigate more to determine what’s causing the bug. Refreshing the Windows installation could help you deal with such potential problems.

Take control of your files and folders with AB Commander file manager for Windows 11, 10, 8.

Sometimes something happens and Windows starts displaying wrong icons on the desktop. For example, you might have upgraded an application and the new version came with a new and improved application icon, but you still see the old icon on the Desktop. Or, a blank or damaged icon image appears where a perfectly good icon was displayed before. Does this sound familiar?

The most common reason for the problem with the icons is the corruption of the Windows icon cache. If you don’t know what icon cache is, it’s a special file that Windows uses to keep copies of each icon handy. When Windows needs to draw an icon, it uses the copy from the cache rather than retrieving the icon image from the original application file. It makes Windows draw the icons much faster.

UPDATE: With the release of Windows 8, Microsoft changed the rules of the game: the icon cache is no longer stored in the IconCache.db file described below. Read more: How to repair the icon cache in Windows 11/10/8

The location of the icon cache file depends on the version of Windows that you have. In Windows 7 and Vista, the icon cache file is:

In Windows XP the icon cache file is:

C:\Documents and Settings\User\Local Settings\Application Data\IconCache.db

So, what to do if the icon cache file became corrupted or damaged, or if Windows did not replace a copy of an icon in the icon cache with a new image of the icon for some reason? The solution is simple: you need to force Windows to rebuild its icon cache! The easiest ways of doing that is by deleting the IconCache.db file. If that file is missing, Windows will build it from scratch. However, deleting this file is tricky: it turns out that Windows keeps a copy of this file in the RAM memory, and if you delete it, with will create a new copy of this file from it’s RAM copy, without refreshing the icon images!

To prevent Windows Explorer from recreating the old icon cache file, you can do the following:

1. If you have not done so already, make Windows display the hidden files and folders. To do so, choose the Folder options command from the Tools menu of AB Commander (or open it from Windows Control Panel), select the View tab, and change the option:

If you don’t like Windows displaying the hidden files and folder, you can change this option back after completing the steps below.

2. Use AB Commander to navigate to the folder where the IconCache.db file is located (see above for the possible locations):

(If you have just enabled the Show hidden files option, you may need to press F5 in AB Commander to refresh is window and make the hidden files and folders to appear in the file listings.) Delete the IconCache.db file, and keep AB Commander window open, do not close or minimize it, you will need it a bit later.

3. Now end the Windows Explorer process. To do that, start Windows Task Manager (by, for example, right-clicking on an empty space of Windows taskbar and selecting Start Task Manager from the menu). Select the Processes tab and right-click on explorer.exe in the list. Finally, select End Process from the menu:

The icons on your desktop will disappear, but don’t panic, they will be back in a minute!

4. Finally, restart the Explorer process. To do that, switch to AB Commander window, enter explorer in its launch box, and press OK:

Take control of your files and folders with AB Commander file manager for Windows 11, 10, 8.

(You could also start Explorer using the File – New Task (Run) command of Windows Task Manager.) Your desktop icons should be back.

The above procedure should force Windows to recreate its icon cache file from scratch. If you don’t see the IconCache.db file right away, don’t worry, it will appear after you log off and log back on to (or restart) Windows.

UPDATE: If you use Windows 8 (or newer) the above procedure may not work. In such a case, you need to use a different procedure. Read more: How to repair the icon cache in Windows 11/10/8

If you want to link to this article, you can use this HTML code: How to repair Windows desktop icons

More information

What people are saying about AB Commander.
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Always have a backup of your important files

Comments

Hi…
Just wanted to say thanks for saving my sanity. There are so many so-called fixes out there and none have worked. I have been trying to fix my icons for 2 days and was about to give up until I searched once more, found your link, followed the much easier steps than what i have previously been thru & “vwalla” . YOU’RE MAGIC! Thanks again 🙂

If one or more of your icons are not displaying correctly, or that your icon cache is corrupted, then you might consider rebuilding the icon cache to reset and reload the icon images into the icon cache. The Icon Cache or IconCache.db is a special database file that Windows utilizes to keep copies of each icon handy

Rebuild Shell Icon Cache v1.3 – (Tuesday, 23 november 2021)

[FIXED] – Conflict with 7-zip
[ADDED] – Some code improvements

Having to retrieve all possible icon images from hard disk and to render them dynamically can consume lots of system resources. As a result, Windows save icons it’s already retrieved in its memory. When Windows needs to draw an icon, it uses the copy from the cache instead of retrieving the icon image from the original application file. This helps in making Windows draw the icons faster.

Rebuild Shell Icon Cache is a Portable freeware and have ability to Refresh the Windows’s icon cache. Usage of the Application is quite simple, just double click on it that’s all. You can use Rebuild Shell Icon Cache with Command Prompt here are the supported parameters

Supported operating systems: Windows 11 , Windows 10 , Windows 8.1 , Windows 8 , Windows 7 , Windows Vista , Windows Xp – (x86 & x64)

Updated : 2021.11.23
File: ReIconCache_x64.exe │ Virustotal
MD5: 622a1f1a9aad418808567341176dbbb0
SHA1: 0d5b082a65d59a208c236b7ddd406e741296df50

Fix Icons missing their specialized image: The problem occurs when the Desktop Shortcut icons are showing up as missing images even though the program is not uninstalled. Also, this problem is not limited to desktop icons as the same problem occurs for icons in Start Menu also. For example, the VLC player icon on the taskbar and on the desktop is showing the default MS OS image (the one where the OS doesn’t recognize the file shortcut targets).

Now when you click on these shortcuts which are facing the above problem they work just fine and there is no problem is accessing or using the application. The only problem is that the icons are missing their specialized images. So without wasting any time let’s see how to actually Fix Icons missing their specialized image issue in Windows with the below-listed troubleshooting steps.

Fix Icons missing their specialized image

Note: Make sure to create a restore point just in case something goes wrong.

Method 1: Clear Thumbnails cache

Run Disk Cleanup on the disk where the Icons are missing their specialized image.

Note: This would reset all your customization on Folder, so if you don’t want that then try this method at last as this will definitely fix the issue.

1.Go to This PC or My PC and right click on the C: drive to select Properties.

3.Now from the Properties window click on Disk Cleanup under capacity.

4.It will take some time in order to calculate how much space Disk Cleanup will be able to free.

5.Wait until Disk Cleanup analyzes the drive and provides you with a list of all the files that can be removed.

6.Check mark Thumbnails from the list and click Clean up system files in the bottom under Description.

7.Wait for Disk Cleanup to complete and see if you are able to Fix Icons missing their specialized image issue.

Method 2: Repair Icon Cache

1.Make sure to save all the work which you are currently doing on your PC and close all the present applications or folder windows.

2.Press Ctrl + Shift + Esc together to open Task Manager.

3.Right-click on Windows Explorer and select End Task.

4.Click File then click on Run new task.

5.Type cmd.exe in the value field and click OK.

6.Now type the following command in cmd and hit Enter after each one:

CD /d %userprofile%\AppData\Local
DEL IconCache.db /a
EXIT

7.Once all the commands are successfully executed close command prompt.

8.Now again open the Task Manager if you have closed then click File > Run new task.

9.Type explorer.exe and click OK. This would restart your Windows Explorer and Fix Icons missing their specialized image issue.

If this doesn’t work for you then you could also try an alternative way: How to Repair Icon Cache in Windows 10

Method 3: Manually Increase Cache Size

1.Press Windows Key + R then type regedit and hit Enter to open Registry Editor.

2.Navigate to the following key in the registry path:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer

3.Right-click on Explorer then select New > String Value.

4.Name this newly created key as Max Cached Icons.

5.Double click on this string and change its value to 4096 or 8192 which is 4MB or 8MB.

6. Reboot your PC to save changes and you are good to go.

Method 4: Create a New User Account

1.Press Windows Key + I to open Settings and then click Accounts.

2.Click on Family & other people tab in the left-hand menu and click Add someone else to this PC under Other people.

3.Click I don’t have this person’s sign-in information in the bottom.

4.Select Add a user without a Microsoft account in the bottom.

5.Now type the username and password for the new account and click Next.

Sign in to this new user account and see if you are able to fix the issue with Icons. If you are successfully able to Fix Icons missing their specialized image issue in this new user account then the problem was with you old user account which might have got corrupted, anyway transfer your files to this account and delete the old account in order to complete the transition to this new account.

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That’s it you have successfully Fix Icons missing their specialized image issue but if you still have any queries regarding this guide then feel free to ask them in the comment’s section.

Aditya Farrad

Aditya is a self-motivated information technology professional and has been a technology writer for the last 7 years. He covers Internet services, mobile, Windows, software, and How-to guides.