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How to Increase the Icon Cache Size in Windows 11

In this guide, we will show you the steps to increase the icon cache size on your Windows 11 PC. The latest iteration of the OS has been blessed with quite a few noteworthy UI tweaks. While the likes of the Start Menu, Taskbar, and Settings menu managed to grab the attention of the masses, however, there was another nifty tweak that went slightly under the radar. We are talking about the new icon packs that Windows 11 has been blessed with.

Just open the File Explorer and you will notice the revamped icons for Documents, Pictures, Music, and Downloads, among others. Moreover, Windows stores all these icons in separate cache memory. This is done so that it could quickly load the icons from the cache instead of having to reload them from scratch. The end result is right in front of you- the icons get loaded as soon as you launch the explorer, without any delay. However, Windows has put a cap on its size- 512kB.

Once this limit is reached, Windows will then dynamically delete and fill in this cache directory based on the current requirement. However, this process takes time and you might notice a delay of a couple of seconds before the icons get loaded. To address this concern, you could increase the icon cache size on your Windows 11 PC. And in this guide, we will show you how to do just that. Follow along. In this guide, we will show you the steps to increase the icon cache size on your Windows 11 PC.

How to Increase the Icon Cache Size in Windows 11

Increase the Icon Cache Size in Windows 11

  1. Launch Registry Editor from the Start Menu and head over to the below location
    Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer
  2. Then right-click on Explorer and select New > String Value.
    Increase the Icon Cache Size in Windows 11
  3. Name it Max Cached Icons and double-click to open it.
  4. Now type in the desired value in kB that you wish to allocate to the cache directory.
     Increase the Icon Cache Size in Windows 11
  5. For example, if you are planning to allocate 2MB, then type in 2048 and hit OK.
  6. Finally, restart your PC and the task stands complete.

So these were the steps to increase the icon cache size on your Windows 11 PC. if you wish to revert the change, then either assign the Max Cached Icons its default size [512kB] or simply delete that file. If you have any other queries concerning the aforementioned steps, do let us know in the comments. We will get back to you with a solution at the earliest.


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