Steam Icon Fixer

Steam Icon Fixer is a simple tool to fix Steam shortcuts that don't have an icon.

Normally, this issue occurs after reinstalling Steam and using an existing game library, or after transferring games from one Steam library to another. The reason this issue occurs is because the Steam client doesn't redownload the icon file for games added to your library from another PC or drive.

This tool goes through all of your shortcuts, either on your desktop or better, in your start folder, and downloads the icon for each shortcut. The end result is the icons reappearing on your shortcuts.

Additionally, this tool can now work with Steam on Linux, where icons are normally not downloaded at all. Icons will not only be downloaded, but can be assigned to their corresponding shortcuts on your desktop automatically.

Usage (Windows)

For normal users, download the latest release build. Place the exe file somewhere, doesn't really matter where. Open a terminal in the same folder as it (you can hold shift and right click to reveal an "Open in PowerShell" option in any folder).

From this terminal, you can specify what directory you would like the tool to search through. As stated earlier, the best folder to search is the start menu, since it usually contains a shortcut for every installed game. You can find the folder for Steam shortcuts in the start menu by searching for any game, and selecting the "Open file location" option. You can also right-click any game in the start menu for the same option. Once open, copy the folder path from the file explorer window.

Once you have the path to your shortcuts, you can invoke the tool by providing the path as the first argument:

sif.exe "path to shortcuts folder"

Note

Quotations are only necessary if the path contains spaces.

Some usage examples:

sif.exe C:\\Users\\user\\Desktop
sif.exe "C:\\Users\\user\\Desktop\\Steam Games"
sif.exe "C:\\Users\\user\\AppData\\Roaming\\Microsoft\\Windows\\Start Menu\\Programs\\Steam"

Tip

If you are using PowerShell, you will need to put ./ in front of the executable name. Example: ./sif.exe

Fatal errors:

• <path> does not exist. (exit code 1): The specified directory does not exist.
• <path> is a file. (exit code 2): The specified path is not a directory.

Any errors that occur during the process will be logged, so it is recommended to read over the output in the terminal once it is complete to identify any errors that may have occured.

Usage (Linux)

For Linux users, you will need to download the repository as binary versions of SIF for Linux are currently not available. You can either use git or download the repository as a ZIP file through GitHub. Clone/unzip SIF to any directory (preferably in your home directory, but not required).

You will also need to make sure Python 3.13.0 or later is installed on your system before proceeding. Most package managers should carry this version of Python or newer. If you're not sure how to do this, please consult the documentation provided by your distribution.

Open a terminal or change directory to the location of the SIF repository and make the SIF script executable with chmod +x sif.py.

From this point you can use SIF the same way you would on Windows by providing the location of the directory containing your Steam shortcuts as an argument. You can also provide an optional second argument to the directory where you would like the icon files to be saved. You should follow the XDG/FreeDesktop directory specifications wherever possible to keep things organized, and use a directory that your DE will have permission to read from.

./sif.py "path to shortcuts directory" ["path to icon storage directory"]

Note

Quotations are only necessary if the paths contains spaces.

Some usage examples:

./sif.py ~/.local/share/applications $HOME/.icons
./sif.py /usr/share/applications/ /usr/share/pixmaps

Warning

Your desktop environment may not load the new icons immediately. Logging out and back in, restarting, or forcing your DE to reload the icons may be necessary.

Building

Important

This is only relevant for Windows users. Binary versions of SIF for Linux are currently not supported.

Steam Icon Fixer requires these dependencies to be built:

• Python 3.13.0 or later
• Windows 7 or newer

After cloning, install Python dependencies with:

pip install -r requirements.txt

Make sure that your scripts directory is in your path, as it is not automatically added during installation.

Finally, create the executable by running the build script:

build.cmd

Tip

If you are using PowerShell, you will need to put ./ in front of the script file name. Example: ./build.cmd

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! If you find something that can be improved, we invite you to open an issue or a pull request.

Please make sure that your pull requests comply with the GPL v3 license. More details are available in LICENSE.md.