Prioritize Shell Icon Overlays in Regedit

Windows Explorer limits the system to a maximum of 15 shell icon overlays, with several slots reserved by the operating system itself. This guide details the exact Windows Registry location where third-party shell icon overlay identifiers are located, explains how Windows prioritizes them, and demonstrates how to reorder these keys in Regedit so your preferred cloud storage and synchronization status icons appear correctly.

Registry Location

Shell icon overlay identifiers are located in the following Windows Registry path:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\ShellIconOverlayIdentifiers

If you are using a 64-bit version of Windows and need to adjust overlays for 32-bit applications, the corresponding path is:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\ShellIconOverlayIdentifiers

How Prioritization Works

Windows Explorer loads icon overlays strictly in alphabetical and numerical order (ASCII order) based on the names of the subkeys listed under the ShellIconOverlayIdentifiers key.

Because Windows can only display the first 11 to 15 overlays it processes, applications placed lower in the alphabetical list are ignored entirely. Many third-party programs (such as Dropbox, OneDrive, Google Drive, and TortoiseSVN) automatically add leading spaces, numbers, or punctuation to their subkey names to manipulate this alphabetical sorting and force their overlays to the top of the list.

How to Manually Prioritize Your Icon Overlays

  1. Press Windows Key + R, type regedit, and press Enter to open the Registry Editor.
  2. Navigate to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\ShellIconOverlayIdentifiers
  3. Review the subkeys listed inside this folder.
  4. To move a preferred service to the top of the priority list, right-click its key, select Rename, and insert one or more spaces or a number (such as 01_) at the beginning of the name.
  5. To demote or disable overlays you do not use, rename them to start with a z_ prefix or delete the unused subkeys.
  6. Open Task Manager, locate Windows Explorer under the Processes tab, and click Restart to apply the changes.