Manual

How to go from installing IconDeck to a tidy desktop, and how to use each feature.

To tidy your desktop quickly

Under Desktop › Icon, click “Import from the Windows desktop”.
Choose “Hide Windows desktop icons” in the tray menu to hide the original icons.
Make one background you like and click “Apply to all icons”.
Under Desktop › Icon folder, make a folder and drag similar icons into it.

Getting started

Install IconDeck from Steam and run it.
The first time, a screen asks which widgets to show on your desktop. You can change this at any time, so just pick what you need now.
A short tour then walks you through the settings window. To see it again, open “App settings” at the top right of the settings window.

To open the settings window, right-click the IconDeck icon in the notification area at the right end of the taskbar and choose “Open the settings window”. The list on the left of the settings window has four groups (Desktop, Widget, Windows and Customize), and “Search settings” at the top finds a setting by name.

To start IconDeck together with Windows, turn on “Start with Windows” in “App settings”.

Desktop icons

Make and style the icons for your desktop under Desktop › Icon on the left of the settings window.

Bringing icons in

“Import from the Windows desktop” brings the icons on your current desktop into IconDeck all at once.
“Import Steam games” turns installed Steam games you pick into icons. Clicking one starts the game through Steam.
“Add an icon” lets you drag a program, file or folder onto the list, or click to choose one. Web addresses and Store apps can be icons too.

Once they are in, choose “Hide Windows desktop icons” in the tray menu to hide the original icons and keep only the IconDeck ones. To bring them back, choose “Show Windows desktop icons again” in the same menu. IconDeck never moves or deletes the files on your Windows desktop.

Styling icons

Each icon has three parts you can change separately.

What it opens: which program, file, folder or address. Launch options such as “Confirm before launching”, “Run as administrator” and “Double-click to launch” are here too.
Picture: keep the program’s own icon, or pick another picture with “Change picture”.
Background: the shape, color, size, frosted-glass look, border and shadow behind the picture. When you like a background, use “Apply to all icons” to give every icon the same one.

Drag icons on the desktop to move them. Drop one near another icon and the spacing lines up, so rows stay neat. With “Running indicator” on, a light appears under an icon while its program is running.

Icon folders

Put several icons into one folder and only a small grid stays on the desktop. Click it to open.

Make a folder under Desktop › Icon folder in the settings window.
Drag icons from the list or the desktop into the folder. When you drag an icon onto a folder on the desktop, the folder opens and shows an empty spot.
Click a folder on the desktop to open it, and click outside to close it again.

Right-click an icon in a folder to move it forward or back, or take it out of the folder. If you point a folder at a real folder on your PC, it fills with that folder’s files automatically.

Widgets

Choose widgets to show under Widget › Add widgets in the settings window. You can show the same widget more than once. Drag widgets on the desktop to move them, and change the design, size, colors and font on each widget’s page in the list on the left.

Widget	What it does
Music player	The album art, title and playback controls of what is playing now. It follows the players Windows reports, such as music apps and browsers.
Volume mixer	Volume for each program, and switching the output device.
Clock	Clocks in many styles: digital, analog, flip numbers and more.
Calendar	This month, public holidays, the lunar calendar and your events. You can subscribe to calendars like Google Calendar with an ICS address, and there is a “Big calendar” window too.
Timer	Several timers. A notice pops up when one finishes.
Schedule	A to-do list that shows the time left and highlights what is urgent.
Routines	Check off daily habits and count your streak.
Dailies	Check off the daily tasks of the games you play.
IconDeck Notes	Sticky notes, one window per note, and a note list. Notes can be locked.
System monitor	Pick from CPU, memory, disk, network and battery.
Live notifications	Tells you when streamers you follow are live.
Cube widget	Small cards that show one thing each, like weather, the date or download speed.
Blank panel	An empty card for decoration.

Widgets sit below other windows so they don’t get in the way. Widgets on a monitor covered by windows rest, and motion stops while you play a game.

Making widgets with AI

If the widget you want isn’t in the list, describe it to the AI chat you already use. Free AI chats work, and you don’t need to put an AI key into IconDeck or pay for anything.

Open Customize › Widget maker in the settings window and click “Make with AI” at the top. You can choose to change the current widget, start from a similar widget, or start from scratch.
Click “① Copy the guide”, paste it into an AI chat such as ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini, and write the widget you want at the very bottom. You can attach a picture of a widget you like, too.
Copy the AI’s whole reply and click “② Paste the reply”. Even if explanations are mixed in, only the widget part is taken.
If you like the preview, click “Add it as is”. If it says there is something to fix, click “Ask the AI to fix it” and send the copied text to the AI chat; it will reply with a fixed widget.

IconDeck accepts only the features in the guide, so nothing unexpected gets in, and the guide contains none of your data. You can try it on this website first. To build a widget by hand, connect values like time, weather and CPU to text, shapes and pictures in the widget maker.

Themes and photos

Themes: pick a theme in Customize › My library and it is applied to your icons and widgets at once. “Try on” applies it for a moment and goes back on its own if you leave it.
One photo for everything: choose a favorite photo as one widget’s background, then click “Apply the background color and photo to all widgets” to use it on every widget.
Wallpaper colors: “Apply wallpaper colors to all widgets” picks colors from your current wallpaper and matches the widgets to them.
Workshop: in Customize › Workshop, get themes and widgets other people made and upload your own. It is connected to the Steam Workshop.

Notch

A small black bar at the top center of the screen. It stays small most of the time, grows right there when there is something to show, and shrinks again. Open “Notch” in the widget list on the left of the settings window and turn it on. If it is off, expand the turned-off widgets at the bottom of the list to find it.

The song playing now, with bars that move to the beat
Volume and brightness, shown in the notch instead of the Windows volume popup
Earbuds, headsets and mice connecting, with their battery
Finished downloads, and files you drop onto the notch to keep
Meetings that are about to start
AI coding tools such as Claude Code and Codex waiting for your reply

The notch hides while you play a full-screen game.

Taskbar and shortcuts

Windows › Taskbar: hide the taskbar on each monitor, or make it transparent, translucent or blurred. You can set it separately for when you see the desktop and when a window is maximized.
Windows › Shortcuts: set shortcuts by pressing keys on a keyboard picture. Use them to hide widgets and icons for a moment, switch to the next scene, start a new note and more.

Scenes

Under Widget › Scenes, save the widgets and icons you have on, and where they are, as one set. Make several scenes, for example for work, rest or streaming, and switch with a shortcut or “Scenes” in the tray menu.

Undo and backups

Changed a setting by mistake? Press Ctrl+Z to undo it.
Settings are backed up automatically once a day, and the last seven are kept. Go back to an earlier day’s settings under App settings › Backup and restore.
Use “Export” under “Settings backup” to save your settings to a file, and “Import” to bring them back later or on another PC.
Settings, notes and copies of pictures you chose are stored only in the %APPDATA%\IconDeck folder.

Troubleshooting

Widgets don’t show over my game

No program can show windows over an exclusive full-screen game. Switching the game to borderless windowed mode may help.

An icon or widget disappeared

Open the settings window with “Open the settings window” in the tray menu and check the list. Hidden icons come back with “Show all icons” under Desktop › Icon. Undo a setting you changed by mistake with Ctrl+Z or Backup and restore.

The same problem keeps happening

Make a log file with “Export history” under App settings › Help and info, and include it when you contact us. The log records only errors and actions, never content such as song, channel or file names.