Windows 10 - how to change desktop icon for URL shortcut?
In Win7, one could give a desktop shortcut to a URL (website) any image one wanted, but that seems not to be the case in Win10. It forces the same image, in this instance the Firefox icon, for all URL shortcuts. Can this be changed? Thank you.
17 Answers
I tried this on Win10. Works. Created a Facebook shortcut, pasting in the URL. Got the standard browser icon first. Then I did a right click on the icon, checked "Properties". Looked for "Change icon". The system has icons. OR, you can go to a web site and create your own from anything. This will take items and turn them into .ico formats so you can use anything you wish to make a suitable icon instead of boring stuff. Save your icons in a selected folder for handy reference. The site allows an upload of your pic, then download to your folder. Simple. I've used this many times without difficulty. Running latest version of Win10 (2004).
1If you have the website pulled up, click on the three dots in the upper righthand corner of the page, click on "More Tools" and one of the choices will be "Create Shortcut." I found this to work to change my desktop icons to match the actual website and not the browser (Chrome) icon.
When you save the file as HTML then the icon of the shortcut is the icon of your default browser. When you pin a page to your taskbar, I think the icon is the favicon of the website. So you can open the code of the site and change the icon there.
When you create a shortcut with New -> Shortcut from the context menu. Then you get an link-file (Internet shortcut .url). That icon you can change: Open the properties (context menu) and go to the tab Web Document and then click on the Button Change Icon ... with Browse you can use every icon / exe you want to show the icon.
Try this. create a link to the program "chrome" and within the properties you choose a URL.
1I did the following to overcome this problem: I saved all the url files in one folder, and for each url file I made a shortcut on my desktop. And from a shortcut, the icon can be changed easily from the properties dialog. Advantage: I have all url files neatly stored in one folder, and I have the icons I want on my desktop.
In Windows 10 I just create a normal shortcut and use Command Line Options (CLI) the browser offer.
Example for Firefox, I create a new shortcut with this :"%ProgramFiles%\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe" -new-tab
Which correctly open a new-tab to google.com if Firefox is already open or open the browser.
Since the created shortcut is a standard .ink shortcut and NOT a .url it offer a 'Change icon' button.
All CLI Parameters for Firefox can be found here :
Ok, I fiddled around for a little bit and the jpg to ico converter tool mentioned above is the best bet, if you are looking for a manual solution you can:
use an image-->open it with paint-->Save as "__".ico (BMP 24 format)-->Find it in your File explorer-->Right Click it-->Copy Full Pathway-->Right click the Icon needing changed--> Go to Properties-->Web Document Tab-->Change Icon-->Delete the link next to browse-->Paste your Link-->Browse-->Use your File.
If I stumble on ways to improve resolution, I will return for an edit.
