When you’re working on Linux, there’s obviously tons of directories (folders) you have to work with, right? Even for the most basic users, a good number of folders must be ready to work with. For example, I have to constantly visit the “Movies” folder for watching my movie collection, “Images” for my photos etc.

In most cases, all the folders have the same icon. That’s so BORING!!!! Of course, you’re free to customize your folder icon with different themes like Oranchelo, Papirus, and Uniform etc. However, you’re not able to individually customize the icon of each of the folders.

Want to give your folders some spice? Let’s change the folder icon for an awesome view with Folder Color!

Installing Folder Color

Folder Color is a nice tool for the purpose. It offers tons of available icons for each of your folders!

Installing Folder Color is very simple. Run the following commands according to your own Linux distro –

• Ubuntu

sudo apt install folder-color folder-color-caja folder-color-common -y

• Debian

# 32-bit package
wget http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/tangerine:/deb9-xfce-4.12/Debian_9.0/i386/folder-color_0.0.86-7_i386.deb

# 64-bit package
wget http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/tangerine:/deb9-xfce-4.12/Debian_9.0/amd64/folder-color_0.0.86-7_amd64.deb

# Install the DEB packages
sudo apt-get install folder-color_0.0.86-7_*.deb
sudo apt-get install -f

• Fedora

sudo dnf copr enable sogal/folder-color
sudo dnf install folder-color-common folder-color-common-lang nautilus-extension-folder-color

• OpenSUSE

sudo zypper install folder-color folder-color-common caja-extension-folder-color nautilus-extension-folder-color

• Arch Linux

# Install Git
sudo pacman -S git base-devel

# Get Folder Color
git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/folder-color-bzr.git

# Install Folder Color
cd folder-color-bzr
makepkg -si

• Generic Linux instruction

Folder Color doesn’t offer much compatibility. If your Linux distro isn’t on above, you have to install the tool from source. Get the latest version of source code on Launchpad.

After the extraction is complete, run the following command –

sudo python3 setup.py install

Depending on your system, you may need to install the following packages –

• python3-distutils-extra
• python3-dbus
• python3-apt

Using Folder Color

Folder Color officially supports two of the most popular file managers – Nautilus and Caja. However, the tool should also work with other file managers. For the best result, Nautilus or Caja is recommended.

Let’s change the icon of “demo1”. Right-click on the folder >> Folder’s Color.

Select whatever your mind wishes! Here’s a demonstration of my test directories.

Enjoy!