update-icon-caches

update-icon-caches [options]

--force
    Forces a full update of the icon cache, even if it appears to be up-to-date.

--verbose
    Provides more detailed output during the cache update process. Helpful for troubleshooting.


    Specifies the directory containing icon themes to be updated. If omitted, defaults to updating all standard icon theme directories.

The `update-icon-caches` command is a utility that rebuilds the icon cache files used by various desktop environments such as GNOME, KDE, and XFCE. These caches store information about installed icons, their locations, sizes, and symbolic links, allowing applications to quickly locate and display icons without having to search the entire filesystem every time.

When new icon themes are installed, updated, or removed, the icon caches may become outdated, leading to incorrect or missing icons being displayed. Running `update-icon-caches` ensures that the caches are synchronized with the actual installed icons, resolving such issues.

The command works by scanning specified directories (usually the standard icon theme directories like `/usr/share/icons` and `~/.icons`) and creating or updating the appropriate cache files (typically located in the same directories). The cache format varies depending on the desktop environment and toolkit used (e.g., GTK+ or Qt).

In most cases, running `update-icon-caches` is not something that users need to do manually. Desktop environments and package managers usually handle this task automatically when icon themes are installed or updated. However, it can be useful to run it manually if you encounter icon display problems or after making manual changes to icon themes.

This command requires write access to the icon directories. It is usually run as root, but when used by a user, only the user's private icon directories are updated (~/.icons).

A typical use case involves running `sudo update-icon-caches /usr/share/icons` to update the system-wide icon cache, especially after installing a new icon theme through a package manager that does not trigger the update automatically. Running just `update-icon-caches` often updates the current user's icon cache.

gtk-update-icon-cache(1)