How to make Windows 11 desktop icons smaller
To make the desktop icons smaller in Windows 11, right-click on the desktop and select “Small Icons”. To make the icons smaller, change the number in the registry. This page shows how to make desktop icons smaller. Please see the following page for how to reduce the desktop icons and narrow the space between icons.
Make Windows 11 desktop icons smaller in settings
The default desktop icon size is large. To make it smaller, set it from the desktop right-click menu. 1. Right-click on the desktop screen to open the menu.
2. When you move the mouse pointer to “View” in the menu,
- large icon
- middle icon
- small icon
is displayed, so if you click ” Small icon “, the icon on the desktop will be changed to small immediately.
How to make the desktop icons even smaller is described in Making Desktop Icons Smaller next .
Make Windows 11 Desktop Icons Smaller
1. Open the desktop icon size registry key
1-1. Start Registry Editor
- Press “Windows” and “R” on your keyboard.
- When Run opens, type regedit in the text box and click OK.
- Click Yes when the User Account Control warning appears.
If you are unsure of what to do, make a backup before editing the registry before doing anything else.
1-2. Registry for setting desktop icon size
Registry location to change icon spacing
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\Bags\1\Desktop\IconSizeExpand in the following order and open Desktop .
- HKEY_CURRENT_USER
- Software
- Microsoft
- Windows
- Shell
- Bags
- desktop
2. Make desktop icons smaller by editing the registry
Change the icon spacing by changing the numeric value data. The point of changing the icon size is explained in the box below. 2-1. Double-click IconSize to display “Edit Value”.
2-2. ① First, click “Decimal” to select it, ② change the value of “Value data” for icon size, and ③ click “OK”.
Points to change the icon size of the desktop with the registry
The icon size registered in the registry is set based on “hexadecimal”. “Hexadecimal” is difficult to understand, so select and change “Decimal” in units of “pixels”, which is easier to understand. The smallest icon in the settings is “32” in decimal. Change the number from 16 to 25 to make the icon smaller.
■ Precautions when changing the icon size value
- The icon size setting is in hexadecimal, so the next number after ” 25 ” is ” 32 “. Setting from 26 to 31 is not possible .
- If you want to make the icons on the desktop smaller, please set the numerical value of the value between ” 16 to 25 ” in decimal .
■ Numeric values for default icon size values
The values for the default icon size (setting value from the right-click menu) are as follows.
- ” 32 ” small icon
- ” 48 ” medium icon
- ” 96 ” large icon
3. Reflect reduced size desktop icons
In order to reflect the change in the size of the desktop icon, restart the explorer and it will be reflected immediately and you can check it. When you restart Explorer, all open Explorer-related items will be automatically closed, so please save any data you are working on first.3-1. Start Task Manager
Right-click the Start button and click “Task Manager” in the menu.
With Ver.22H2, you can start the task manager by right-clicking on the taskbar.If the task manager is “simple display” as shown below, click “Details (D)” at the bottom left to switch to the detailed screen.
3-2.Restarting Explorer
From here, since versions 21H2 and 22H2 are slightly different, they are explained separately. ■ How to operate in version 22H2
- On the “Processes” screen, click “Explorer” to select it.
- Click “Restart Task” at the top of the screen to restart Explorer.
■ How to operate in version 22H1
- On the “Processes” screen, click “Explorer” to select it.
- Click “Restart” at the bottom right of the screen to restart Explorer.
If the size changes again, adjust the icon size by changing the registry value again using the steps above, then restart Explorer and check. It is important to restart Explorer
Please note that if you change the icon size value and restart your computer without restarting Explorer, the icon size registry value may return to its original value.