How to Change Icons and Text Labels (Names) of Start Screen Tiles in Windows 8 and 8.1?

NOTE: This tutorial will help you in changing text labels (renaming) and icons of Start Screen tiles in Windows 8 and Windows 8.1.

We know that Microsoft has added a new Windows Phone style Start Screen in Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 operating systems. This Start Screen has replaced the good old Start Menu. Start Screen contains big live tiles of program shortcuts and metro apps. You can group these tiles, move these tiles, pin or unpin tiles and resize tiles according to your requirements as described in following tutorials:

But there is a slight problem! Microsoft didn’t provide any easy way to rename these tiles. You can’t change text labels of Start Screen tiles. If you right-click on a tile to customize its settings, you find options to resize, run, pin, unpin the tile but there is no option given to rename the tile. It would have been really great if Microsoft provided a direct option to change text label of tiles.

Advertisement

Similarly you can’t change icons of tiles. All tiles show the default icon of the associated app or program.

But there is a workaround to overcome this problem. Many of you might be already aware of this trick. If you don’t know, this tutorial will help you.

Today in this tutorial, we are going to tell you how to change text labels of Start Screen tiles and customize their icons in Windows 8 and Windows 8.1.

So without wasting time lets start the tutorial:

1. Go to Start Screen and right-click on the tile which you want to rename or customize. Now click on “Open file location” option present at the bottom.

Open_Windows_8_Start_Screen_Tile_Location.png

2. It’ll open “Programs” folder which contains all the shortcuts that are shown on Start Screen.

Advertisement

To rename the tile, you just need to rename the associated program shortcut present in “Programs” folder. For example, in our screenshot we are going to change “Adobe Photoshop” text label and icon. So we’ll just rename Photoshop’s shortcut present in “Programs” folder. Right-click on the shortcut and select “Rename” option. Alternatively, you can also press “F2” key to rename the shortcut. Now type your desired name and press Enter.

To change tile icon, right-click on the program shortcut and select “Properties” option.

Open_Program_Shortcut_Properties.png

It’ll open shortcut properties window. Now click on “Change Icon” button and select desired icon.

Change_Program_Shortcut_Icon.png

At last apply the changes.

3. That’s it. Now go to Start Screen again an you’ll see the new text label and icon of your desired tile.

Windows_8_Start_Screen_Tile_New_Icon_Text.png

Its an easy process but a built-in option to rename tiles would be really nice. What do you think about this feature? Feel free to share your comment…

Also Check:

[Tip] Customize Start Screen Tiles Background Color, Text Color and Logo in Windows 8.1

Published in: Windows 8

About the author: Vishal Gupta (also known as VG) has been awarded with Microsoft MVP (Most Valuable Professional) award. He holds Masters degree in Computer Applications (MCA). He has written several tech articles for popular newspapers and magazines and has also appeared in tech shows on various TV channels.

Comments

NOTE: Older comments have been removed to reduce database overhead.

  1. My default browser is Google Chrome.
    How do I leave the Internet Explorer icon in the Metro Style? Thanks.

  2. This simply doesn’t work on any of my Windows 8.1 systems. “Open file location” does not appear!

  3. Doesn’t on any of my 3 Win8.1 systems so you will have to justify this assertion! I can make a video to show you that it DOESN’T appear – so justify your statement!

  4. ^^ And it works in all Windows 8.1 systems I’m using. Windows 8.1 is based on Windows 8 and this option is still there. Make sure you are trying to access “Open file location” for the correct type of shortcut. Did you try to access this option for other shortcuts as well? Try to access this option for a 3rd party software shortcut.

  5. @Roger Matthews : You are right, it does not appear “Open file location” for Metro Apps. But does appear for Windows Applications

  6. It looks like the label for the app can be changed this way, but not a shortcut to a site you pin to the desktop using that application. We are stuck with the odd web address file mixture. Is there a way to name/rename this type of link?

  7. Does not work on windows 8 standard issue tiles only 3rd party tiles period as john states, please admit this does not work for all tiles as it clearly does not.

  8. This only works for “programs” Unfortunately its the web sites that need this capability. It may be a limitation of the nature of the pinned item?

  9. i would really like to change the app categories and where the actual tile shortcuts are placed by default. can that be done? thanks.

  10. Is there any trick to using custom *.ico files? I can’t seem to get any that I have created to work correctly for the tiles. but yet they work fine for desktop shortcuts. :-\

  11. ^^ What happens when you set an .ICO file as icon for a shortcut? Start Screen should start showing the new icon for the tile. You can try to remove and then re-add the tile after changing its icon.

  12. Hey, VG! Could you help me out? My windows 8.1 won’t cooperate. The bar that usually shows up when you right click the tile won’t show up. :/

  13. I found that pinning from chrome allowed me to open the file location to change the name, but pinning from IE did not!

  14. hello… i jst installed windows 8.1.
    i have some problems with that , that view of my folders icon remain unchanged. how to solve this prob?????

  15. In my system it doesn’t appear with right-click, but it does with long-press
    And in some applications “open file location” does’t appear.
    But based on those that do appear, you can find all of them using windows explorer in either one or the other of two locations:
    C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs
    or
    C:\Users\[YOUR USERNAME HERE]\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs

  16. I followed these instructions to the tee and my “Change Icon” button is greyed out. Somehow, one of my applications has taken another application’s icon as it’s own. Not sure how this happened. I tried “repairing” the application, but may end up uninstalling and reinstalling it.

  17. shortcut points to a web page. the text is ok but the icon is the standard google chrome circle icon. I go through your steps, select a more appropriate icon select apply and nothing changes on my start screen tile. however, the shortcut shows up on my desktop with the changed icon even though is displays as the google chrome circle on my start tiles. very annoying. guess i will live with it!!!

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

NOTE: Your comment may not appear immediately. It'll become visible once we approve it.