Folders are the backbone of organizing your files. If you’re a heavy computer user, you probably have hundreds of folders scattered across your drives for all sorts of different projects. When you’re dealing with that many directories, it’s incredibly easy to lose track of the important ones. Plus, let’s be honest—Microsoft’s default yellow folder icons get pretty boring to look at after a while.
If you want to spice up your desktop or just organize your workflow visually, I’ve got a great tool for you.
Folder Colorizer is a brilliant little application that lets you change the color of any folder in Windows Explorer with just two clicks. You can grab the download link at the bottom of this post. Once you install it, the app silently integrates into your system and adds a new Colorize! option to your right-click context menu.
To change a folder’s color, simply right-click it, hover over the Colorize! menu, and pick your favorite color. Out of the box, it comes with a nice selection of defaults: Yellow, Lawn Green, Red, Blue, Silver, Violet, Sandy Brown, and Aquamarine.
The moment you click a color, it applies instantly. Occasionally, you might need to refresh the Explorer window to see the effect. Here’s a quick screenshot showing how I colorized a couple of my own folders:
Don’t like the default colors? No problem. Just click the “Colors” option at the bottom of the Colorize! menu. This opens up a custom color picker where you can dial in the exact shade and style that fits your aesthetic.
It’s not entirely perfect, though. The biggest downside I’ve found is that you can’t batch-colorize multiple folders at once. If you’re looking to color-code a massive directory tree, you’re going to spend quite a bit of time doing it one by one. But for highlighting a few crucial project folders, it’s absolutely fantastic.
Just a heads-up: when you use the application for the first time, it might ask for your email address and prompt you to send out a small tweet to activate it.
Ready to customize your workspace? Give it a try!