You may often notice blank icons on your desktop or folders or incorrect images on your Windows 11 device. These are broken icons in Windows 11/10, and we have just the right solutions for you to fix the issue.
For example, you may see a white color default icon instead of the Recycle Bin icon. While this could sometimes occur due to a glitch with the Windows Explorer, there could also be other reasons. We researched this issue and found some effective solutions for the Windows 11 icons not displaying correctly problem.
How to fix Broken Icons in Windows 11
If your Windows 11/10 icons are not displaying correctly, there could be several possible reasons for that. For example, if you are using the tablet mode, corrupted icon cache, custom icon packs, or if the theme you are using is incompatible with the OS.
While there could be multiple reasons why you see broken icons, we recommend the below solutions to get rid of the trouble.
- Preliminary technique
- Disable Custom Icon Packs
- Change the Theme
- Run SFC Scan
- Repair or rebuild icon cache
- Disable tablet mode
- Reset PC
1] Preliminary techniques
Before you try the below methods, you may try a few preliminary steps to rule out any major issues:
- Refresh your desktop by right-clicking and selecting Refresh.
- Restart your PC.
- Update the affected app.
- Hide and unhide desktop icons.
- Check if the affected app is installed properly. Check its installation files.
- Restart Windows Explorer.
If none of the above steps help you to fix the broken icons, you can move on to try the primary troubleshooting methods below.
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2] Turn off custom icon packs
If you have recently installed any custom icon packs, we suggest you disable them as they may interfere with the files or folders and corrupt the icons. It could be possible that the installed custom icon pack is incompatible with your OS version.
In this case, it’s advised that you disable the custom icon pack and use the default desktop icons instead.
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3] Change the theme
Chances are that your current theme is corrupted and hence, the Windows 11 icons are not displaying correctly.
In this case, you can launch the Settings app (Win + I) > Personlization > Themes > Current theme.
You can select a custom theme from here, or go to Get more themes from Microsoft Store to Browse themes.
Alternatively, you can also change themes in various other ways to fix the issue when you see the broken icons in Windows 11.
4] Run SFC Scan
Sometimes the Windows 11 icons may not display correctly due to corrupted or missing system files.
To fix this, you must use the system file checker utility and run the sfc scannow command in the elevated command prompt.
It will either detect the corrupted system files and repair them or replace the missing files with fresh new ones.
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5] Repair or rebuild the icon cache
There is a high probability that your icon cache database (IconCache.db) is corrupted and hence the icons show broken in Windows 11.
IconCache.db is a unique database file that stores copies of every icon for Windows to access the data whenever it wants to create an icon. So, if this database is corrupted, you can rebuild the Icon cache to fix the broken icons problem.
6] Change the display orientation
If you are using the portrait mode on your Windows 11 device (previously the Tablet mode in Windows 10), you may notice navigation tiles instead of desktop or folder icons. Therefore, it’s recommended that you change the display orientation of your device to flip or rotate your Windows 11 screen to fix the issue.
So, for this, launch Windows Settings (Win + I) > System > Display > Scale & Layout > Display orientation > switch between Landscape and Portrait or the flip options.
Read: How to Remove Broken Shortcuts in Windows
7] Reset PC
If none of the above methods work, you can try resetting the PC which allows you to restore your computer to factory settings without losing files.
For this, open the Settings app (Win + I), select Windows Update on the left, and click on Advanced Options on the right.
On the next screen, scroll down and under Additional options, click on the Recovery tab.
Next, click on the Reset PC button.
Now, follow the on-screen instructions carefully.
Read next: Icons not showing in Windows Search Box
How to restore icons on Windows 11?
To restore icons on Windows 11, right-click on an empty area on your desktop, select View, and then click on the Show desktop icons option. Your icons will show up with immediate effect. This shortcut method helps you manage desktop icon visibility effectively.
How to fix broken or missing icons?
First, you can try refreshing the desktop by pressing F5 to fix broken or missing icons on your desktop. If that doesn’t work, you can rebuild the icon cache. For this, delete the IconCache.db file from the user’s AppData folder, and then reboot your PC. Moreover, try updating the problematic app to restore its missing icon.
