Organize SVG Icon Folders with Icon Explorer

Icon folders get messy in the usual way: three versions of the same arrow, a dozen files called final-2.svg, a subfolder somebody meant to sort out. IconVectors 2.0+ adds an Icon Explorer so you can do that sorting where you can see the icons, as thumbnails, instead of guessing from filenames in Windows File Explorer.

Everything below runs on real files. Explorer has no undo for file operations and no Recycle Bin in this release, and it asks for confirmation before every delete. Read those prompts. This guide is for IconVectors 2.0+ on Windows; the macOS and Linux builds are coming soon.

1. Open the folder and get around it

Press F5 (View -> Explorer) or click Explorer on the switch at the far left of the Control Bar. F4 or Ctrl+Tab brings the Editor back with its layout untouched. The first time you enter Explorer, IconVectors creates a folder called IconVectors Icons in your Documents folder and opens it; on later starts it reopens the newest folder from your recent list.

To open another folder use File -> Open Folder... (Ctrl+Shift+O), the ... browse button, or the address field. Type or paste a path there and press Enter; Escape puts the current path back, and a path that does not exist leaves the folder and the grid exactly as they were so you can fix the typo. The chevron at the right end of the address opens Recent Folders: the last 20 folders you opened explicitly, newest first, kept between sessions.

Inside a folder you move around with the .. entry or Up for the parent, Back and Forward for the history (up to 100 entries, also kept between sessions), and one button per drive letter. Each drive button remembers the last folder you used on that drive, so clicking D: takes you back to where you were on D:, not to its root. The Documents and Elements buttons jump to those two folders.

2. Find the icons you mean

Explorer scans one level: the folder's direct subfolders, each with its icon count, then the folder's own SVG files. Pick a tile Size of 64, 96, 128, 192 or 256 px and a Background of Light, Dark, Checkerboard or Borderless. Checkerboard and Borderless follow the application theme; Light and Dark stay as they are. Each SVG tile shows its filename and canvas size, and hovering shows the modification time and file size as well.

Filter matches a literal piece of the full filename, extension included, with no wildcards: arrow shows every file with arrow in its name, *.svg shows nothing. Selected files that stop matching stay selected but hidden, and the header count shows visible versus total icons plus the full selection count, so you always know what a later command will touch.

Selection works the way you expect: click, Ctrl+click to toggle, Shift+click for a range, Ctrl+A for every visible icon, and the arrow keys, Home, End, Page Up and Page Down once the grid has focus. Clicking a subfolder makes it the active target without adding it to the selection; folders are never part of an SVG selection.

3. Create structure

New Folder, in the header or in the right-click menu, creates a direct child of the current folder, and always in the current folder, even when you right-clicked a subfolder. The dialog rejects names Windows would reject, reserved device names, trailing dots and spaces, and any name already in use, and it stays open so you can correct the name. The new folder is selected and scrolled into view afterwards, and the filter is cleared so you can see it.

To sort existing icons into a subfolder, select them and choose Group in Folder.... Explorer creates the child folder and copies the files into it by default; tick Move icons into this folder when the originals should go. When the operation commits, Explorer opens the new folder. Moving is refused while the selection contains the document open in the Editor, so close that document first.

4. Rename in bulk

Select one SVG file or one subfolder and press Ctrl+Shift+R (Explorer -> Rename). A file keeps its .svg extension, and Explorer will not overwrite an existing file. Select two or more files and the same command opens Batch Rename.

Batch Rename takes a base name without the extension and numbers the files from 1 in the order you see them in the grid. Two options change the result. Use -N numbering gives Base-1.svg instead of Base1.svg. Pad numbers with leading zeros uses as many digits as the count needs: Base-01.svg to Base-12.svg for 12 files, Base-001.svg to Base-100.svg for a hundred. Explorer validates the whole plan before it renames anything, and if one rename fails it tries to put the others back. Files hidden by the filter are left out, so clear the filter first if you want them included.

5. Move and copy with drag and drop

Drag selected SVG files onto a subfolder to move them (same drive) or copy them (another drive). Hold Ctrl to force a copy or Shift to force a move. Hovering over a folder while you drag opens it, so one drag can go several levels down. Dropping into the same folder does nothing unless you hold Ctrl, which makes duplicates.

The same drag works between Explorer and Windows File Explorer in both directions: files dragged in are copied into the target folder, files dragged out follow the normal Windows copy or move rules. Folders are drop targets but are not themselves copied or moved. And dragging SVG files onto the Editor imports them as editable groups in one undoable step; one file dropped into an empty Editor opens it as a document.

For plain copies without dragging, Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V and Ctrl+D work on files while Explorer is active. Paste takes .svg paths from the Windows clipboard; Duplicate makes name-copy.svg, then name-copy-2.svg and so on. Neither ever overwrites an existing file.

6. Delete safely

Select the files and press Delete (Explorer -> Delete). Explorer always asks first: a single file by name, a multi-file delete with the exact number of visible selected files. Hidden selected files are not included. The deletion is permanent; nothing goes to the Recycle Bin in this release, and there is no undo for it. If a file changed, moved or was replaced after you selected it, Explorer refuses to delete that stale target rather than removing a different file.

A subfolder can be deleted only when it is empty and Explorer has finished counting it, and it goes the same way: a confirmation, then a permanent removal. Anything inside blocks it.

What Explorer does not do yet

The Explorer in 2.00 scans one level deep and has no sorting, no favorites, no Cut, no Recycle Bin and no undo for file operations. The address field has no autocompletion yet. Rename works on one folder at a time, and Batch Rename is for SVG files only. Two things make up for a lot of that. The folder is watched, so anything you change in Windows File Explorer shows up on its own (Ctrl+R rescans if you want to force it). And Shift+F5 opens a second IconVectors window straight into Explorer, which is the easiest way to compare two folders side by side.

The Explorer ships with every IconVectors 2.0+ install. Download the free trial for Windows and open your own icon folder with Ctrl+Shift+O.