In this article
Each folder tab can carry an icon of your choosing, including a custom animated one. The row across the top of your chat list stops being words and becomes symbols you recognise without reading.
And unlike almost everything else you can decorate, this one is seen by nobody but you — which changes what a good choice even means.
What you will be able to do
- check_circle Put an icon on a folder tab.
- check_circle Pick symbols that work at the size they are drawn.
- check_circle Fit more folders across the screen.
- check_circle Know when a word beats a picture.
The icon is chosen while editing the folder, from the same picker as any other emoji.
folder_special The only decoration nobody else sees
Almost every customisation in this app is partly a performance. A profile colour, a status, an animated avatar — all of them are chosen with some awareness of how they look to other people. Folders are not shared, so the tab row is yours alone and there is no audience to consider.
That makes it an unusually clean design problem. There is one question — can you hit the right tab without reading — and the answer is decided entirely by whether the symbols are distinguishable from each other at the size a tab actually gets, which is small.
The practical gain is real, too. A row of names runs out of width after three or four folders; a row of icons fits more, so the folder you want stops being one you have to scroll sideways to find. On a phone that difference is worth more than it sounds.
Icons that work, and icons that look good
They are not the same set, and the difference only shows once there are six tabs.
check_circle Works
block Does not
One shape, one colour, no thinking. The test is hitting the right tab without reading the row.
reorder Order matters more than the icons do
An icon helps you find a tab. The order decides how far your thumb travels to reach it, and that is the larger saving. The folders you open constantly belong at the left where they are easiest to hit; the archive of things you check weekly belongs at the far end.
There is also a quiet trap in having several folders at all. Every tab is a place unread messages can hide, and a folder you never open is a set of chats you have stopped seeing rather than a set you have organised. Two or three tabs that reflect how you actually work are worth more than eight that reflect how you would like to.
settings Setting them
- Edit the folder The icon is one of its settings.
- Pick one strong shape Detail disappears at tab size.
- Keep the colours different Colour is recognised before form.
- Order by how often you open them Most used on the left.
- Look at it on your phone Not on the desktop you set it from.
- Then leave it alone Recognition is built by repetition.
This page decorates the tabs. The curriculum step is what sits behind them: how folders are built from rules rather than lists, what belongs in one, and how a folder can be handed to somebody else as a bundle.
At a glance
- 1Folder icons
Use a custom emoji as a folder's icon.
- 2Shape and colour
One bold shape per folder is easiest to recognise.
- 3Order first
Arranging folders saves more time than icons.
Updated
