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.
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/thissayantan/frost-icon-theme/main/install.sh | shThen pick Frost in GNOME Tweaks → Appearance → Icons (or run
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface icon-theme '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 isM↓, 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.gitignoreas plain text,.tsas a Qt translation file andgo.modas 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 @2xincluded.
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 -- --mimeAlso 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.
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.
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).
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.xzDesign rules: docs/DESIGN.md. Pipeline and decisions: docs/ARCHITECTURE.md.
How to contribute: CONTRIBUTING.md. Shipped vs inherited: docs/COVERAGE.md.
- 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).
MIT — icons and tools alike. Use it, change it, ship it.