Quick answer: Windows lets you change a folder's icon in Properties > Customize > Change Icon, one folder at a time. With Icon+ from Productivity Plus Pack, right-click any folder or file and pick an icon from the included packs or your own. Add a Rate+ star rating that shows on the icon, and keep your busiest folders in Quick pins.
Start with a folder full of look-alikes
Imagine a Projects folder with twenty subfolders: a few active client projects, some waiting on someone else, a personal side project and several finished ones you keep for reference. In File Explorer they are twenty identical yellow folders, and you read every name to find the one you want.
The goal is not to decorate every folder. It is to make the few that matter today stand out, and to make a folder's state visible without opening it.
1. Decide what an icon means before you pick one
Choose a small set of icons and give each one a job. Keep it short enough to remember without a legend:
| Icon | Means | Example |
|---|---|---|
| A bright, distinctive icon | Active - working on it this week | Northwind website |
| A clock or hourglass | Waiting on someone else | Supplier quote |
| A house or heart | Personal | Kitchen renovation |
| The default folder icon | Finished or reference | Last year's projects |
Leaving finished folders with the default icon is deliberate: the fewer custom icons you use, the more each one stands out.
2. Give the folders their icons
Right-click a folder, open the icon menu and choose an icon. Icon+ includes the Windows 11 - Files and folders and Chinese Zodiac packs, and you can turn individual packs on or off in Icon+ Settings.
To use your own icons, set Icon Location in Icon+ Settings and put folders of .ico files there. Each folder becomes a group in the icon menu, so a Status group with your status icons keeps your choices one step away. Icon packs in the menu require Context Menu+.
When a project changes state, change its icon from the same menu. Restoring the default icon is one click when a project is finished.
3. Add ratings for what matters most
Icons show a folder's state; a star rating can show how much it matters. Right-click a folder and choose a rating with Rate+, for example five stars for the two projects with the closest deadlines. The stars appear on the folder icon in the Medium, Large and Extra Large icon views, on top of your custom icon.
Inside the folders, rate the files too: the one current draft, the signed copy, the reference you return to. File ratings also appear in the Search filters section of Explorer's navigation pane, so you can list your five-star files in one click. Folder ratings show on the folder but are not included in the search filters, which match files.
4. Keep the busiest folders a click away
Add the active folders to Quick pins in Context Menu+, in a group for each area of work. With Navigation+, Quick pins appear as their own entry in Explorer's navigation pane and in supported Open and Save dialogs, so the same folders are a click away when you attach or save a file from another app.
Recently used folders, under Search filters, is useful alongside them: it lists the folders you opened in Explorer, used in Open and Save dialogs, or use most often.
The result: a folder list you can read at a glance
Opening Projects now shows the three active projects, the one you are waiting on and the personal one at a glance, with stars on the two that need attention first. The folders you use every day are also pinned in the navigation pane and in your apps' file dialogs.
Tools used: Icon+ · Rate+ · Context Menu+ · Navigation+