The little white arrows on shortcut icons can really mess up your aesthetic. Here’s how to get rid of them.
Windows desktop shortcuts have little arrows on their icons. The icons include those arrows to highlight that they’re shortcuts for software and files. As most of the icons on your desktop will likely be shortcuts, however, those arrows are hardly essential.
Some users might prefer to remove those arrows from desktop shortcut icons. Windows 11/10 doesn’t include any built-in option with which you can disable shortcut icon arrows. Nevertheless, you can still remove those arrows from desktop shortcut icons in Windows 11/10 with the two alternative methods below.
The registry is one big database of configuration settings for Windows. You can remove shortcut icon arrows by adding a new Shell Icons key to the registry. That might sound a little daunting, but a pretty straightforward registry tweak is all that’s needed. Just follow the steps directly below for editing the registry exactly as specified.
After the restart, you’ll notice the shortcut icons on your desktop don’t have arrows on them. You can restore the shortcut arrows at any time. To do so, reopen the Registry Editor, right-click the 29 string for the Shell Icons key, and select the Delete option.
Read also: What Is the Windows Registry and How Do I Edit It?
It might be slightly simpler to remove arrows from desktop shortcut icons with third-party customization software. ShortcutArrow Changer is a freeware customization app that enables users to remove the shortcut icon arrows in Windows 11, 10, 8, and 7. This is how you can disable shortcut icon arrows with ShortcutArrow Changer.
Aside from removing the arrow overlays, you can also change them to more appealing ones by selecting ShortcutArrow Changer’s Custom shortcut icon option. When you select that option, the Icons folder shown directly below will open from which you can select different arrows for the icon. Choose an alternative icon there, click Open, and press the Apply button.
You can also get more arrow overlays for shortcut icons from the IconArchive website. Enter shortcut arrow icon in that website’s search box to find more. Select an arrow to download from there, and click the ICO button.
Save it to the C:Program Files (x86)BTI Software HouseShortcutArrow Changer folder. Alternatively, move the arrow’s ICO file into that folder after downloading it. Then you can select to add your downloaded arrow to shortcut icons with ShortcutArrow Changer.
Read also: How to Add Icons to the Desktop in Windows 11
Windows 11’s default shortcut icon arrows aren’t especially visually appealing or important to keep. So, maybe you should remove, or at least change, the shortcut icon arrow overlay. It’s pretty quick and easy to remove the icon arrows with either of the methods above.
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Jack has been a freelance tech journalist for more than a decade. He has covered Windows Vista, 7, 10, and 11 topics within a multitude of guides for Make Use Of and numerous other websites.
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