GitHub - thissayantan/frost-icon-theme: Frosted-glass icon theme for Linux — folders, apps, 134 file types and status icons

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4 min read Original article ↗

A frosted-glass icon theme for Linux — folders, apps, 134 file types and top-bar status icons, each one a vivid colour seen through a soft pane of frosted glass, with a crisp white symbol on top.

Frost in a Files window, dark and light

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/thissayantan/frost-icon-theme/main/install.sh | sh

Then pick Frost in GNOME Tweaks → Appearance → Icons (or run gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface icon-theme 'Frost').

Why Frost

  • One glass language everywhere — the same two shapes and a glyph for folders, places, apps and files. No macOS lookalikes, no brand logos, no mixed styles.
  • File types that say what they are — JSON is { }, Markdown is M↓, a lock file is a padlock, a certificate is a rosette, a Dockerfile is a stack of crates. Colour tells the kind, and from 48 px a short label (JSON, MD, PEM, LOCK, GO…) tells the exact type. All 134 file types →
  • Fixes for developer files — GNOME types bun.lock, .env, Dockerfiles and .gitignore as plain text, .ts as a Qt translation file and go.mod as a tracker-music module. The optional MIME add-on (--mime) gives them real types, per user, reversibly.
  • Top-bar status icons you can read — Wi-Fi, VPN, Bluetooth, volume, microphone (orange while in use), battery with charging/charged marks, night light: pixel-exact at 16 px, recoloured by GNOME Shell.
  • Crisp at every size — small sizes are hand-drawn on the pixel grid, not scaled down. HiDPI @2x included.

Before: Yaru. After: Frost

Install

One line (downloads the latest release to ~/.local/share/icons/Frost; never changes your theme):

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/thissayantan/frost-icon-theme/main/install.sh | sh
# with the developer file-type fixes:
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/thissayantan/frost-icon-theme/main/install.sh | sh -s -- --mime

Also on gnome-look.org.

Manual: download Frost-v*.tar.xz from Releases, extract it, and copy the Frost folder to ~/.local/share/icons/.

Arch: the one-liner works there too; an AUR package will follow once AUR registration reopens.

Recommended: install Papirus too (sudo apt install papirus-icon-theme). Frost only ships icons it has redrawn well; everything else falls back to Papirus, then Adwaita.

Uninstall: sh install.sh --uninstall (removes the theme and the MIME add-on), then pick another icon theme.

Compatibility

Made and tested on GNOME 50 / GTK 4.22, Ubuntu 26.04. The glass is baked into PNGs (16–256 px, @2x), so it looks the same in GTK 4, GTK 3, Qt/KDE apps and the GNOME Shell app grid. Status icons are plain symbolic SVG so the shell can recolour them.

Every size is checked, not just the big one

Selected icons at 16, 24, 48 and 128 px The whole set on light, dark and wallpaper backgrounds

The story behind it

Why the default icons bothered me, how the project-stack folder marks work, and what Linux actually thinks your files are (.ts is a Qt translation file, go.mod is tracker music): dev.to · Medium · LinkedIn · Show HN

FAQ

Why isn't Firefox / Chrome / VS Code themed? Frost never redraws trademarked logos. Brand apps keep their own icon (via Papirus), which is also what their makers ask for.

An icon I use is missing. Request it — include the app's Icon= name (from its .desktop file) or the file's type (gio info -a standard::icon FILE).

Build it yourself

Requires Bun and Python 3.

bun install
bun run build           # src/**/*.svg → dist/Frost (PNG @1x/@2x, aliases, index.theme, icon cache)
bun run verify          # lint + index.theme checks + real GTK lookup of every shipped name
bun run install:local   # → ~/.local/share/icons/Frost (+ MIME add-on)
bun run pack            # → dist/Frost-v<version>.tar.xz

Design rules: docs/DESIGN.md. Pipeline and decisions: docs/ARCHITECTURE.md. How to contribute: CONTRIBUTING.md. Shipped vs inherited: docs/COVERAGE.md.

Credits

  • Visual direction inspired by Glassmorphism – Glass Icon set (Free) by Kristaps Elsiņš / uibits (CC BY 4.0). Frost's artwork is original — no geometry was copied.
  • The Markdown mark (M↓) is by Dustin Curtis, public domain (CC0).
  • Fallback icons: Papirus, Adwaita. Rendering: resvg.
  • Built with a lot of help from Claude Code (design reviews, pipeline, pixel hinting).

License

MIT — icons and tools alike. Use it, change it, ship it.