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If you're in your home folder, you can right-click any of the folders and just under "Properties" are some colors. If you click one of the colors, it will highlight the text underneath that folder.

I was wondering if there is a way to change the color of the folder itself.

I know there is a package called folder-color, which works on Ubuntu-based systems but doesn't seem to work on elementaryOS.

UPDATE: I just came across this blog post. The very first picture, under 0. The Desktop!, has different color folders. Anyone know how he did that? https://medium.com/@alex285/7-things-elementary-os-does-terribly-wrong-in-2018-b9035df08791

UPDATE #2: I heard back from the guy who wrote that blog post. He said it was from a "WIP/Branch when elementary was trying 'colored' folders. But it didnt land on final Juno release!" From the context, I think WIP means "work in progress" and is referring to a beta version. It would be nice if the developers made changing folder colors a permanent option. They did say this regarding the new manila folders: "We switched from the previous blue folders throughout the OS for folders to be more neutral, plus to open up the possibilities for more meaningful use of color in the future."(emphasis added) in the following article: https://medium.com/elementaryos/elementary-os-5-juno-is-here-471dfdedc7b3 I would definitely like to be able to change colors of the folders.

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2 Answers 2

Reset to default
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You can, but you need to use a different file viewer - Nautilus works great.

sudo apt-get install nautilus

sudo apt-get install folder-color

You should be able to right click folders using Nautilus and select "folder color" to adjust them. Here's a screenshot of mine running Juno 5.0:

enter image description here

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  • Thanks. Is there a way to change it back after installing Nautilus?
    – Paul
    Commented Oct 25, 2018 at 6:34
  • @Paul - Back to what? The original file manager? Nautilus is installed next to the original file manager so you can just uninstall Nautilus and go back to Elementary Files.
    – J. Afarian
    Commented Oct 29, 2018 at 23:40
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    Yes, that is what I meant: going back to Files after installing Nautilus. Thanks.
    – Paul
    Commented Oct 30, 2018 at 6:18
  • If you run into any issues let me know, but it should be as simple as uninstalling Nautilus and using Files again. I did the same for the purpose of taking my earlier screenshot :) I prefer files, personally.
    – J. Afarian
    Commented Nov 1, 2018 at 0:52
  • J. Afarian - what icon theme is that? It looks great.
    – oliverh72
    Commented Feb 1, 2019 at 12:28
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If you have elementary tweaks installed, it's pretty straightforward to swap out icon packs, but that's kind of a global change to all icons and I don't think this is quite what you're looking for. Unfortunately I'm not aware of this functionality built into elementary OS, but maybe someone more knowledgeable about this stuff will come along.

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  • Thanks. You're right that it's not quite what I'm looking for, but I can certainly try that. I thought they had gotten rid of elementary tweaks after Freya. Or maybe it was just strongly recommended not to use it anymore.
    – Paul
    Commented Oct 20, 2018 at 22:04
  • From what I understand, the developers don't like it. The original maintainer had become too busy, but some wonderful new folks took up the responsibility. Last I saw the latest commit was 3 days ago. It works just fine on my machine, although at least one app had an issue where text was no longer readable in dark mode (Palaura, for what it's worth).
    – Kyle Norquist
    Commented Oct 21, 2018 at 0:29
  • Tweaks has always been available, but Kyle is right - they don't like you using stuff outside their own little ecosystem.
    – J. Afarian
    Commented Oct 23, 2018 at 6:19

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