17

How to change icon theme in i3? If this matters, I'm working on Arch Linux. I googled, but I can only find info about GTK theme, not icons.

Improve this question

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
35

I can think of at least 2 options you can choose from:

1. use LXAppearance

LXAppearance can change the GTK2/3 icons (and themes, fonts, etc.). LXAppearance is part of the LXDE desktop environment, but as you can see on the package page, its dependencies are only dbus-glib and gtk2.

I prefer using LXAppearance because it gives access to all important theme-related settings but is still very lightweight.

2. Edit config files directly

You can change ~/.gtkrc-2.0 and ~/.config/gtk-3.0/settings.ini directly (the former for icons in GTK2 applications, the latter for GTK3 applications) - the setting you're looking for is gtk-icon-theme-name in both cases.

For GTK2, you can just add a line like

gtk-icon-theme-name="Faenza-Ambiance"`

to the file, for GTK3 the line needs to be inside a [Settings] section like

[Settings] 
gtk-icon-theme-name=Faenza-Ambiance

You can find the name of the theme by looking at the Name property inside its index.theme file.

Improve this answer
3
  • But what variable to set in that files?
    – enedil
    Aug 18, 2014 at 21:17
  • @enedil I've updated myanswer with that information.
    – Wieland
    Aug 18, 2014 at 21:28
  • 1
    If you are using Gnome along with i3 you can also use the gnome-tweaks app.
    – Andrew Young
    Sep 18, 2019 at 6:58

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service and acknowledge that you have read and understand our privacy policy and code of conduct.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.