How to Fix Windows 10’s Icon Cache: Rather than loading icons whenever needed, your Windows documents and programs can save their icons in an icon cache for quicker access. Rebuilding or restoring the icon cache on your computer will solve any icon-related issues.
Sometimes, when you update an application, and the revised application has a new icon, but instead, you see the same old icon for that application or a destroyed icon, it means the Windows icon cache has corrupted. It’s time to repair the icon cache.
How does the Icon Cache work?
Understanding how the icon cache functions is essential before learning how to Repair the Icon Cache in Windows 10. Icons are present throughout Windows, and finding all icon images from the hard drive each time they are needed can drain system resources. This is where the icon cache comes into play. Windows downloads icons from the icon cache and not the actual application whenever it needs one since it maintains a copy of every icon that is readily accessible there.
Icon cache saves this cache to a secret file whenever your computer restarts or shuts down to avoid reloading all of those icons later.
Where is the icon cache stored?
The previously mentioned information is stored in a database file named IconCache.db, which may be found in the following locations in Windows Vista and Windows 7:
Although Windows does not use them to store the icon cache, the icon cache file is located in the same place in Windows 8 and 10. The icon cache file in Windows 8 and 10 is found in:
This folder includes many icon cache files, specifically:
- 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
To fix the icon cache, you must remove all icon cache files. However, this is not as easy as it may seem because Explorer still uses these files, so you cannot simply delete them. However, there is always another option.
How to Fix Windows 10’s Icon Cache
- Launch File Explorer and navigate to the selected folder:
C:\Users\<your username>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer
NOTE: Please use your Windows account’s real username instead. If the AppData folder is not visible, you must navigate to the folder and search option by selecting “My Computer or This PC,” then selecting “View,” “Options,” and finally, “Change folder and search options.”
- In Folder Options, choose “Show hidden files,” “Hide protected operating system files,” and “Show hidden folders and drives”.
- The AppData folder will then be visible to you.
- Right-click on the Explorer folder while holding the Shift key, then choose “Open command window here.”
- At that path, a command prompt window will open:
- To confirm that you are in the correct folder and to see the icon cache and thumb cache files, type the dir command into the command prompt:
- Select “Task Manager” by right-clicking on the Windows taskbar.
- To make Windows Explorer vanish and make the desktop visible, right-click on “Windows Explorer” and select “End task.” Ensure no other applications are open in the command prompt window after exiting Task Manager.
- To remove every icon cache file, use the following command in the command prompt window and press use:
- Use the dir command once more to see what files are left. If you see any icon cache files, it suggests an application is still running. In this case, you should use the Taskbar to end the application and start the process.
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That’s all there is to it: you now know how to fix icon cache in Windows 10 and may no longer experience icon cache problems. Remember that this method won’t solve the thumbnail problems; instead, go here. Feel free to leave a remark or ask us any questions if you still have any.
