How to Change The Icon of Your USB Pendrive or Removable Disc

“How to give icon to my USB or any other removable drive/device” is a common question among people. This means that when you will plug your pen drive to any computer, that computer will show your desired icon or a thumbnail beside the device. But the way of changing the icon of your USB device is very easy though many people don’t know it! So I wrote a basic and easiest way to do this job. No software or tool is required. You just need your icon file, a text editor(Notepad). Lets take the tour.

How to change icon of your removable disk :

1. Before giving custom icon, your USB icon will be default according to your windows theme. My one was as below :

Default icon of USB

Default Pendrive Icon

2. Now from menu bar(Menu bar is located at the top left side of your explorer. If you don’t see menu bar, go to OrganizeLayout > Mark Menu bar), go to ToolsFolder Options. Now go to View tab.

Go to Tools from MenuBar

3. Find out the option “Hide extension for known file types“. If it is checked, then uncheck it. It should look like below.

Uncheck

4. Then click Apply and Ok.
5. Now enter into your USB device. You have to make a new text file here. To do that, right-click on your mouse. From right-click menu, go to New > New Text document.

Create a New Text Document

6. Now rename your text document from “New text document.txt” to “autorun.inf”.

Rename it into autorun.inf

Rename it into autorun.inf

Rename it into autorun.inf

7. After renaming the autorun.inf file should be look as above.

8. Now right-click on autorun.inf file and select edit. Then it will open with notepad. Copy and paste the following code into that notepad and save(replace existing file when saving) it.

[autorun]
icon=rijans.ico

Write the autorun code

9. Now you have to put an ico file(icon file which has *.ico extension) in the same place where your autorun.inf file is located. After puting ico file beside the inf file, rename the ico file into rijans.ico . Then your window will look like below.

Give custom icon to USB device

10. Now you are done. Now to check, open your pen drive from computer then again plug to computer. Look your icon is changed. Note: 1. You have to use icon file. Not image. 2. You can use any icon you want. 3. If you have any image, then convert that image into ico file with icon creator software. 4. You are commended to use 256*256 ratio icon. 5. Your icon name and icon name in autorun.inf should be same. For example, if your icon name is techgainer.com.ico then the code should be as

Note:
1. You have to use icon file. Not image.
2. You can use any icon you want.
3. If you have any image, then convert that image into ico file with icon creator software.
4. You are commended to use 256*256 ratio icon.
5. Your icon name and icon name in autorun.inf should be same. For example, if your icon name is pcsfix.ico then the code should be as

[autorun]

icon=techgainer.com.ico

6. If you don’t have icon or icon creator tool then download icon samples from vistaicons.com .

7. Your anti-virus may disturb you. Because anti-viruses treat autorun.inf file as virus assistant.

Attention: Do you want to give any name(even in your language) to your pen drive? Then proceed to Rename Your Pen Drive/USB With Any Name With Any Language In Any Font as You Want With Autorun.

Author: 

Jaber is a Programmer and Tech Enthusiast Geek from Dhaka, Bangladesh. He is the founder and Chief-Editor of TechGainer. While he is away from his keyboard, either he's fishing or messing with wildlife. In case, you can contact him at rijans[at]techgainer[dot]com.

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View Comments (20)

  • Sorry techgainer, changing icon of usb didnt work! I gave up i checked it in two pc's but it didn't.. Xo

  • Hey there! Ive been reading your web site for a long time now and finally got that the courage to go
    ahead and provide you a shout out out of Austin Texas!
    Just wanted to mention keep up the fantastic work!

  • I appreciate, cause I found exactly what I was seeking for.
    You have ended my four day long hunt! God Bless you man. Have a nice day.

    Bye

  • Hello friend, i tired to change icon as you said. i cannot save autorun.inf name. at the time the messege is"acces denide'' plz help me

  • First Of All Thank You.
    Changing Name & Icon WORKS...!!!
    But How To Do Both At Same.
    Two "autorun.inf" Files Are Not Allowed On Same Directory...!
    Plz Help Me..!!!