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Folder Color is a Nautilus extension that allows you to easily change the folder icon color to some predefined colors such as blue, pink, black, yellow, violet, orange, green, grey or red. With a small tweak, the extension also works with Nemo file manager.


Its purpose is not to create new icon themes - the tool is useful for easily spotting a folder. For instance, you can change some important folder icon color, organize your music folders by using different colors for various artists, organize your documents folders and so on.

Note that Folder Icon only works with the default Ubuntu icon theme.

To use the extension, simply right click any folder in Nautilus (or Nemo, see below) and select "Folder Color" from the context menu, then select the color you want to use for that folder icon:

Folder Color - Nautilus

Folder Color - Nemo

As you can see from the screenshots above, you can easily revert the folder icon to default by selecting "Restore to Default".

Update: Folder Color 0.0.9 was released and includes scalable icons, emblems for the default folders and also, the light blue folder color was removed and two colors were added: brown and cyan.


Install Folder Color in Ubuntu


Folder Color is available in a PPA, for Ubuntu 14.10, 14.04 and 12.04. Add the PPA and install it using the following commands:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:costales/folder-color
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install folder-color
Or, if you don't want to add the PPA, you can grab the deb file from HERE.

Then, restart Nautilus:
nautilus -q

To install Folder Color for Nemo (Ubuntu/Linux Mint with Cinnamon), use the following commands:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:costales/folder-color
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install python-nemo libgtk2.0-bin folder-color-nemo
And then, restart Nemo:
nemo -q
If Folder Color doesn't work with Nemo, you may need to apply the fix listed under step 4 from HERE.

To download the source code, report bugs, etc., see the Folder Color Launchpad page.

first screenshot, Folder Color via thinkonbytes