FolderSkin
Language
Star on GitHub8
Free & open sourceMade for your desktop

Give any folder
a skin.

Your best memories wear the same plain folder as your old paperwork.
FolderSkin gives every folder a picture that fits what's inside, on macOS, Windows and Linux.

Download Now

Free for macOS, Windows and Linux

FolderSkin: browse painted folder skins and try one on your own folder.
A little more you, in every folder.Real app. Real folders.

MAKE IT YOURS

Know every folder at a glance.

Polaroids for your photos, a travel poster for a trip, a record for your music, pop art for the weekend. A folder that looks like what it holds is quicker to find, and nicer to open.

12 folders

  • Polaroid photos pinned to a corkboard, lettered Memories Photos
  • A vintage travel poster of a yellow tram on a Lisbon street, lettered Lisboa Trip
  • A record playing on a turntable, with a winding road across the vinyl Music
  • A popcorn box flying like a rocket over a cinema, lettered Movie Night Movie night
  • A goldfish swimming inside a light bulb Ideas
  • A cosy library built inside a tree Reading
  • A pop-art disco ball, lettered Saturday Weekend
  • A vault's entrance in the snow under the northern lights, lettered Archive Archive
  • A lit tent under a starry sky among pine trees Outdoors
  • Van Gogh's The Starry Night Art
  • Marie Curie as a pop-art comic, lettered Radioactivity Science
  • A row of arcade machines glowing in the dark Games

HOW IT WORKS

Three steps.
One happy folder.

No digging through system settings, and nothing inside the folder changes.

Read the guides

  1. Drop a folder

    Drag it onto FolderSkin, or click to pick one. The first time it opens, FolderSkin offers free packs to start your library.

  2. Try skins on

    Click a skin and the folder wears it straight away. Nothing changes on disk until you apply.

  3. Apply it

    The new look shows up in Finder, File Explorer or your Linux file manager. Changed your mind? Revert puts the old icon back.

INCLUDE SUBFOLDERS

Give a whole project the same look.

Turn on Include subfolders, and the skin goes on every folder inside, all the way down. FolderSkin counts them first and asks before a big run. Then you can watch each folder change.

  • Stop whenever you like, and carry on from there.
  • Hidden folders, apps and system folders are left alone.
  • Revert all takes off exactly what the run put on.
  • Up to 5,000 folders in one run.

COMMUNITY PACKS

1000+ skins, free to add.

The skins come from FolderSkin's own official collection and from the packs people share: old masters, travel posters, pop art, music, nature and plenty more. Take just the one skin you like, or add a whole pack in one click.

  • A melting pocket watch draped over a slice of pizza, in the spirit of Dalí
  • Mount Fuji behind pink cherry blossoms, in gouache
  • A raccoon DJ spinning records on a trash-can turntable
  • Tropical fish over a sunny coral reef in clear turquoise water
  • A 1970s roller-disco girl holding a glitter ball
  • The pink Hawa Mahal palace in Jaipur, in mosaic
  • Hokusai's great wave with a tiny surfer and a camper van on the shore
  • The rose-red Treasury of Petra in clay
  • A skeleton mariachi band under papel picado banners
  • An Icelandic waterfall between mossy green cliffs
  • A cow in round red sunglasses, in black ink on red waves
  • A red and white lighthouse on green cliffs
  • Charlie Chaplin on a skateboard, lettered Skate
  • A red double-decker bus and a phone box on a London street
  • Jimi Hendrix playing guitar inside a rainbow spiral
  • An oil painting of the Eiffel Tower on a spring day
  • A vintage camper van with a surfboard on top
  • A yellow tram climbing a sunny Lisbon street
  • A man by a red convertible on a palm-lined beach, a seaplane overhead
  • The ruins of Machu Picchu on a green mountain
  • A tiki bar with coconut cocktails and hula dancers at sunset
  • A Dutch windmill above a field of tulips
  • A pair of Nike sneakers flying on feathered wings
  • A Kyoto pagoda framed by red maple leaves
  • A giraffe in yellow sunglasses sipping a Coca-Cola
  • A bouquet of red and yellow tulips in embroidery
  • A Chinese dragon dance through a street hung with lanterns
  • A gondola on a Venice canal between warm-coloured houses
  • Napoleon riding a giant inflatable unicorn
  • Amsterdam canal houses with bicycles, in coloured pencil
  • A crocodile in sunglasses sipping a cocktail in a pool
  • An octopus barista making eight coffees at once
  • A snow leopard on a sunny rocky ledge
  • A turquoise vintage car before colourful Havana facades, lettered Havana
  • The Taj Mahal in warm pink sunrise light
  • A pug in a leather jacket riding a motorbike
  • Medusa under a 1950s salon hair dryer, snakes peeking out
  • A knitted baby penguin in a red scarf
  • Albert Einstein at a turntable among flying equations
  • Yellow taxis on a sunny New York street
  • A frog in a tiny gold crown and heart-shaped sunglasses
  • Wonder Woman flexing her arm, lettered We Can Do It
  • A cassette spilling its tape out like a rainbow
  • A clay baby panda munching bamboo
  • The Venus de Milo in red boxing gloves
  • A cat posing like the Sphinx in front of the pyramids
  • A 1960s swimmer in a polka-dot cap licking an ice cream
  • A hippo ballerina in a pink tutu on a sunny stage
  • A Game Boy standing as a building in a tiny pixel city
  • A white cat in a sailor hat, lettered meow in katakana
  • A painted festival elephant with a decorated canopy and bells
  • Elvis Presley playing a ukulele on a surfboard under palm trees
  • A cat in a sombrero on a lotería card, lettered El Gato
  • A bus decorated with peacocks, chrome trim and flowers
  • Two lovers sharing an umbrella in the monsoon rain, under a Hindi title
  • An action hero riding a crocodile, lettered Jungle King
  • A 1950s family picnic with watermelon on a red checked blanket
  • Leonardo da Vinci's sketch of a flying drone on parchment
  • The Mona Lisa taking a selfie with a peace sign
  • Godzilla slurping ramen on top of a Tokyo building
  • A golden retriever in a flower lei surfing a big wave
  • A 1960s couple on a yellow Vespa along the Amalfi coast
  • A couple jiving beside a glowing jukebox
  • Isaac Newton catching a giant apple in front of a prism rainbow
  • A panda doing kung fu on a sunny Tokyo street
  • A golden Buddha in red headphones inside a rainbow halo
  • A waitress on roller skates carrying milkshakes
  • A typewriter whose paper spills out into ocean waves
  • King Kong on a skyscraper holding a giant banana
  • A classic Ford Mustang on a desert highway, lettered Born Free
  • A geisha in sunglasses, sneakers and a red track jacket
  • A 1950s pin-up girl riding a red rocket through golden clouds
  • A kid playing an arcade cabinet in a 1980s arcade
  • A goldfish in an astronaut helmet floating over a beach
  • Cleopatra in cat-eye sunglasses holding a cassette tape
  • Beethoven in chunky studio headphones, in orange and pink ink
  • A clay scarlet macaw on a poppy-red background
  • Spider-Man relaxing in a web hammock between palm trees
  • Overwater bungalows on a turquoise lagoon in the Maldives
  • David Bowie with a lightning bolt painted across his face
  • Van Gogh in his straw hat taking a selfie by a sunflower field
  • A round baby owl with huge eyes on a branch
  • The Girl with a Pearl Earring blowing a bubble-gum bubble
  • Sugarloaf Mountain with a samba dancer and a toucan, lettered Rio
  • Frida Kahlo on a pink pool float with a parrot
  • Batman in heart-shaped glasses blowing a bubble-gum bubble
  • A baby elephant spraying a fountain of water
  • Darth Vader making latte art as a barista
  • A bear running a pastel ice cream truck at the beach
  • Marilyn Monroe in a white halter dress eating a slice of pizza
  • A peacock with its tail fanned out on a coral background
  • A green sea turtle gliding through turquoise shallows
  • A linocut toucan with a big orange beak
  • A stack of pancakes with syrup and berries
  • A clay sloth smiling from a leafy branch
  • Three felt tacos with salsa and lime
  • A sleepy red panda hugging a star-shaped pillow
  • A pop-art pot of saffron biryani
  • A fox cub asleep with its bushy tail curled around it
  • A felt birthday cake with lit candles and balloons
  • A puffin with little fish in its colourful beak
  • A grand library with tall wooden bookshelves
  • A tiny corgi puppy sitting in a teacup
  • A grinning jack-o'-lantern and candy corn
  • A low-poly ladybird on a leaf with dew drops
  • Red paper lanterns and a golden dragon for Lunar New Year
  • Five yellow ducklings walking in a row
  • A fairytale castle rising from the pages of an open book
  • A smiling pink felt axolotl among bubbles
  • A felt mushroom cottage with a round door and a chimney
  • A knitted hedgehog carrying a big strawberry
  • Chess pieces on a wooden board
  • A baby koala sticker hugging a eucalyptus branch
  • A passport, a paper map and a brass compass
  • A capybara in a bathrobe and cucumber face mask in a hot spring
  • A golden retriever puppy peeking out of a cardboard box
  • A bald eagle soaring with its wings spread
  • A grand piano whose keys spill into a waterfall
  • A hummingbird sipping from a red hibiscus
  • A small robot arranging Van Gogh's sunflowers in a vase
  • A watercolour of a kitten tangled in a ball of yarn
  • An alpaca rock star playing an electric guitar on stage
  • Hot-air balloons over Cappadocia at sunrise, in mosaic
  • An Indian bride and groom laughing under marigold garlands
  • A saxophonist whose music turns into a city skyline
  • A hamster with cheeks stuffed full of sunflower seeds
  • Bob Marley smiling under a big sun, in red, yellow and green ink
  • White houses above a bright sunny sea in Santorini
  • A surfer riding a wave inside a coffee cup
  • Freddie Mercury in a yellow jacket and a crown, fist raised
  • A kingfisher on a branch with a tiny fish
  • A cat in sunglasses lounging by a pool with a pink cocktail
  • A 1960s man leaning on a Fiat 500, lettered Call Me
  • A fluffy baby chick in a tiny yellow raincoat
  • Michelangelo's David licking a giant rainbow ice cream
  • A Moai statue in huge headphones on a green hill by the sea
  • James Bond in a tuxedo raising a martini glass

  • Search any skin or pack by name or tag, or see what's trending and most downloaded.

  • The Official skins are FolderSkin's own collection, free under the MIT licence.

  • Every skin and pack in the gallery opens FolderSkin in one click: Use takes just that skin, Install adds the whole pack.

  • What you add is saved on your computer and works offline. When a pack changes, FolderSkin offers the update.

Browse the gallery

SHARE YOURS

Made skins you love? Share them with everyone.

Put them in a pack and send it from inside FolderSkin. There's no account to make, and you don't need GitHub.

Pictures go up losslessly, so the pack looks exactly as you made it. A list of your submissions shows where each pack is, and why if one is turned down.

How sharing works Pack sharing terms

  1. Pick your skins

    Tick the ones to share, name the pack and choose a licence.

  2. Share it with the community

    Send it for review right from the app. It's free.

  3. A person reviews it

    Nobody else sees the pack until it's approved.

  4. Anyone can add it

    Approved packs show up in the gallery and in the app's Community, for everyone.

Try it on your own folders.

Free for macOS, Windows and Linux. No account, no subscription.

Download NowSee the community packs

DESIGN YOUR OWN

Start from a colour, a word or an emoji.

The composer is a canvas shaped like your folder. Begin with a plain colour, a label, an emoji, glass, stripes or a photo with a caption, then change whatever you like. It works offline, and Save & apply puts your design straight on the folder.

  • Words in seventeen font styles, and they can curve into an arch.
  • Emoji, thirteen shapes and ten patterns, film grain included.
  • Shadows, glows and sticker edges.
  • Design on the Mac's folder or on Windows'.

Rather use a photo? Drop it on FolderSkin and it becomes a skin.

Meet the composer
Ideas
Ideas
Colour
Pattern
Folder

A taste of the composer, drawn with the same folder layers it uses.

GENERATE WITH AI

Describe a folder, and AI paints it.

Type an idea, pick a style, and ask for changes in the same chat until it's right. Then put it on your folder.

How the AI assistant works The prompt for ChatGPT and Grok

COMMAND LINE

Prefer a terminal? Meet folderskin.

The folderskin command paints folder art with the Local Model or your own key, tidies pictures up, applies and reverts icons, and makes and checks packs. Two jobs it's especially good at:

  • Theming a whole drive: every folder under one, painted from its own name in one style, and applied if you ask.
  • Batches: a file full of ideas, painted one after another.
Every command, and the Windows installer, on GitHub 
# Install it on a Mac or Linux
curl -fsSL https://folderskin.app/install-cli.sh | sh
# Or with Homebrew
brew install prajwal-svm/tap/folderskin-cli
# Set up the Local Model, once
folderskin ai setup
# Paint four takes on one idea
folderskin ai gen "a lighthouse at dusk" --style woodblock -n 4
# Paint every folder in Projects from its name, and apply them
folderskin ai theme ~/Projects --style travel-poster --apply
# Put a picture on a folder, then take it off again
folderskin apply ~/Music --image vinyl.webp
folderskin revert ~/Music

PRIVACY

Your folders stay yours.

No account to make, and nothing that tracks you. Your folders, pictures, designs and settings stay on your computer, and FolderSkin only goes online for the few things that need it.

Stays on your computer

  • Your folders, and the icons FolderSkin writes
  • Every picture you add and every skin you make
  • Your AI keys, encrypted
  • Favourites, tags and settings

Only these go online

  • Community packs, when you browse or add them
  • The update check, when the app opens
  • An AI request, when you make one, straight to your provider
  • The Local Model's files, when you set it up
  • A pack's id when you add it, so the gallery can count adds

A closer look

OPEN SOURCE

Free, and open for anyone to check.

FolderSkin's code is public, so you can read exactly what it does before it touches a folder.

Download NowStar on GitHub

QUESTIONS

Before you download.

Anything else? Read the guides, or ask on GitHub.

Does FolderSkin change the files in my folders?

No. It only changes the folder's icon, the way your system expects: an invisible icon file on a Mac, a desktop.ini and a small icon file on Windows, a .directory file on Linux. What you keep in the folder isn't touched, and Revert removes only what FolderSkin wrote.

Is it really free?

Yes. FolderSkin is open source under the GPL-3.0, with no account, no paywall and no subscription. The one thing that can cost money is AI with your own key, which your provider bills you for. The Local Model is free.

Do I need AI, or an API key?

No. Community packs, your own photos and the composer all work without AI. If you'd like AI anyway, the Local Model needs no key, and neither does ChatGPT's or Grok's chat with FolderSkin's prompt.

How do I undo it?

Press Revert, and the folder gets its usual icon back. A folder that already has a custom icon offers Remove custom icon as soon as you pick it. Uninstalled FolderSkin first? The platform notes show how to remove an icon by hand.

Which Linux file managers show skins?

Dolphin and the other KDE file managers, GNOME Files, Nemo and Caja. Thunar and some minimal file managers don't show custom folder icons. FolderSkin still writes them, so they appear if you switch.

Why does Windows warn me when I install it?

The Windows installer isn't signed yet, so SmartScreen asks first. Choose More info, then Run anyway. The Mac app is signed and notarized by Apple, so it opens like any other app.

What about folders in iCloud, OneDrive or Dropbox?

They work. The small files FolderSkin writes sync like any others, and a computer on a different system ignores them. On Windows, OneDrive's Files On-Demand can block the folder setting Windows needs.

DOWNLOAD

Meet your folders again.

Pick your system, then make yourself at home.

Latest release & release notes

macOS

macOS 12 or newer · Apple silicon & Intel

Installer

Universal · .dmg

Download for macOSGet the latest installer

Or with Homebrew: brew install --cask prajwal-svm/tap/folderskin

Windows

Windows 10 and 11 · 64-bit PCs

Installer
Download for WindowsGet the latest installer

Linux

x86_64 & ARM64 · glibc 2.35 or newer

Installer
Download for LinuxGet the latest installer

Linux support depends on your file manager. See platform notes