How To Rebuild Icon Cache In Windows 10

Has it ever happened to your system that sometimes you are unable to see icons for any folder or programs? Or it shows white icons instead. There has been an issue in Windows 10 where users say that their icon cache keeps getting corrupt or does not load properly. But here we are going to share with you two methods for restoring icons back in Windows 10 manually. And in case that doesn’t work, we have also got an alternative 3rd method in which we will use a 3rd party software.

Rebuild Icon Cache In Windows 10

Method 1 – Manually

Inside the Program files in the Windows, there is Icon Cache database file with help of which system quickly accesses the icon image for any given application or program. In this method, we will learn how to restore default icons in Windows 10 in just a few steps.

1. Navigate to the following location C:>Users>user>AppData>Local>Microsoft>Windows>Explorer. AppData folder may be hidden so you will need to enable hidden folders.
2. Here you will see various files with the name iconcache_x.db. Delete all of the files with the same title.
3. It may not delete all the files and you will see a folder named ThumbCacheToDelete. This is normal and nothing to worry about.
4. Now just restart your PC or File Explorer and you will see the icon cache has restored to its defaults and the ThumbCacheToDelete folder will also be gone.

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Method 2 – Using Command Prompt

In this method, you can rebuild your Icon cache by just using a few command lines in the command prompt.

1. Open the task manager. For that, you need to hold down Ctrl+ALt+Delete keys at the same time and then click on Task Manager from the Menu or just right click on the taskbar and select the same from there.
   
2. Now in the Task Manager, right click on Windows Explorer and select End task. This will remove the taskbar and all the icons in the background.
3. Go to File and then select a Run new task. Now in this task creator write cmd.exe and checkmark the box under it and select OK. After this command prompt will appear.
4. Now enter the following command as shown in the images and at the end, your icon cache will reset itself. It will not even require any reboot or restart for rebuilding the icon cache.

Command:

cd /d %userprofile%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer

attrib –h iconcache_*.db

del iconcache_*.db

cd /d %userprofile%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer

attrib –h thumbcache_*.db

del thumbcache_*.db

start explorer

Method 3 – Using Thumbnail And Icon Cache Rebuilder

This application will do the task of resetting the icon cache and thumbnails using command prompt and the commands automatically.

1. Now for resetting or rebuilding the icon cache, download the Icon Cache Rebuilder application available for Windows 10 by the Windows Club, here.
2. Using this application you will be able to reset the Windows icons and thumbnails with just a few clicks. Once you are done installing the application, open it and you will see the option to Delete Icon Cache and Delete Thumbnail Cache.
3. Select your desired option by marking the checkbox in front of it and click on Rebuild.
4. It will then show you a pop-up box asking permission for closing all the tasks in the background, select Yes.
5. Once the task is finished it will show you the message for the same. Then Restart your PC and the application will rebuild icon cache for your Windows.

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Conclusion

With these three ways you can rebuild the icon cache in Windows 10, and even the thumbnails with the help of the application mentioned in method 3. You can also try these methods to clear icon cache in Windows 8.1. Do let us know if these methods worked for you.

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