If there is one thing I have come to realize over the many years I have used Microsoft Windows, it is that there is always more than one way to accomplish most tasks on the operating system. The process to change icon sizes on Windows 10 is one of them within the latest OS from Redmond.

In fact, there are three primary areas on Windows 10 where you can change icon sizes. In this post I will show you where to access each one of these options. There is a lot of value to change icon sizes on Windows 10 these days especially with so many large and wide screen monitors now being available to consumers.

Desktop

There are two ways to directly change icon sizes on Windows 10’s desktop. The first begins by right clicking in a blank space on your desktop to open the context Menu.

Once you have the context menu open, move your mouse cursor over the View entry at the top to open the next sub-menu. On that menu you will find three options at the top to change icon size on the desktop.

Here are examples of those three size options:

Small Icons on Windows 10 Desktop

Medium Icons on Windows 10 Desktop

Large Icons on Windows 10 Desktop

There is another method to change the sizes of the icons on Windows 10’s desktop that many do not know about.

Just place your mouse cursor in an open part of the desktop, hold down the Control key on your keyboard and then scroll your mouse wheel. This will give you many more intermediate sizes for your icons compared to the small, medium, and large on the desktop context Menu.

File Explorer

Next let’s open File Explorer and look at the options it has to change icon sizes on Windows 10.

At the top of the Ribbon Toolbar in File Explorer under the View tab, you will find multiple options relating to the format of information as it is viewed in File Explorer. The entries we will focus on to change icon sizes on Windows 10 are shown in this screenshot:

As you can see, there are four options for sizing the icons in File Explorer:

• Extra Large
• Large
• Medium
• Small

Examples of all four of these options are shown in the screenshot gallery at the bottom of this post.

Taskbar

Another area where you can change icon size on Windows 10 is for your Taskbar but unlike other areas of the operating system, there are only two direct size options for icons on the Taskbar.

In order to change between these two options you must open Windows Settings > Personalization > Taskbar:

Just toggle the button under Use small Taskbar buttons and you will switch down to a smaller size icon across the Taskbar. Here are examples:

Normal Taskbar Icon Size

Small Taskbar Icon Size

As you can see the spacing is tighter along with the overall smaller size of the icons.

System Wide

The last process I am going to show you to change icon sizes on Windows 10 is one that impacts the overall operating system UI and not just individual areas as shown above.

There is a drop down menu in Windows Settings > Ease of Access > Make everything bigger that allows you to adjust the sizing of everything on your system and not just the size of the icons. This option impacts apps, programs, user interface elements, and every area of the system.

This is another way to change icon sizes on Windows 10 and everything else around it and if you have one of those big monitors then this will be very handy.

Wrap Up

As mentioned earlier, there is almost always more than one way to take care of certain settings on a Windows based system and the options to change icon sizes on Windows 10 are abundant!

Windows 10 File Explorer Screenshots