If you've ever tried getting custom app icons on your phone, you must've noticed that doing so usually requires you to download Android launchers first since the native one doesn't support third-party app icon packs. Such is the case for Samsung phones too.

This is a problem because a launcher might not support all the features and widgets that you're used to using on the native OS of your phone. Luckily, there are ways you can get unique icons on your Samsung phone without having to download a launcher. Let's see how.

What to Know Before Installing Icon Packs

Before we see how to apply icon packs to make your Samsung phone look more beautiful, you should first know an important fact: it's highly unlikely that an icon pack will have a custom icon for every single app on your device.

Why? Because developers have to design skins for each app manually. That means popular apps are more likely to have icons available, but less popular ones might not. Due to this, customizing your Samsung phone becomes a bit harder.

Android home screen with unique app icons

There are two solutions to this. One, you can hide apps from the app drawer that didn't get new skins. And two, you can download multiple icon packs and search their catalogs to see if they have skins for the lesser-known apps on your phone. We'll show you how to do both.

How to Apply Icon Packs From the Galaxy Store

Customizing app icons on Android requires downloading third-party launchers, but there are two methods you can apply icon packs to your Samsung phone without them.

The first method is easy but less effective while the second one is a bit time-consuming but yields a better result. Let's first see how to apply icon packs via the Samsung Galaxy Store.

Follow these steps below:

  1. Long-press an empty space on your Home screen and tap Themes.
  2. Go to Icons and select an icon pack you like.
  3. Tap Download, then tap Apply once downloaded.
  4. Go to Menu > My stuff > Icons to see all your icon packs.
  5. To go back to stock icons, tap Default > Apply.

In our experience, icon packs from the Galaxy Store usually only have icons available for a very limited number of apps, so we don't recommend them all that much.

How to Apply Custom Icons Using Good Lock

In the second method to apply icon packs on your Samsung phone, you'll need three things: the Good Lock app by Samsung, the Theme Park module inside the Good Lock app, and your icon pack(s) of choice. As we said earlier, this method takes more time, but is more effective.

Download: Good Lock (Free, in-app purchases available)

If you're downloading multiple icon packs, make sure they look similar to avoid your apps looking inconsistent. We're using Minimal White Lite and Whicons icon packs for this guide.

Follow the steps below:

  1. Download your favorite icon pack(s) from the Google Play Store.
  2. Download the Good Lock app and install the Theme Park module.
  3. In Theme Park, go to the Icon menu and tap CREATE NEW.
  4. Tap Iconpack (the gift box icon) and select an icon pack under Third party icon packs. Once selected, Theme Park will show you a preview of your apps with that icon pack applied.
    • You can also change the shape, color, and size of your app icons from the same menu.
  5. Once you're happy with the result, tap the Install button (the downward arrow), give it a name, and tap OK. Your new theme is created; tap it and select Apply.

How to Change Individual App Icons on Samsung

If you've followed through so far, most of your apps should now have a new icon. But as you've probably noticed, a fair number of them didn't change, especially games.

Now, you can either leave them be as they are and just enjoy the ones that did change, or follow these steps to find icons for almost all the apps on your phone:

  1. Open Theme Park and go to the Icon menu. Tap on your saved theme and select Edit.
  2. Tap the three dots menu at the top and select Change icons. You'll see a list of all the apps that changed and all that didn't.
  3. Select an app from the list you want to change. Then, from the pop-up menu, select an icon pack different from the one you picked earlier.
  4. In its catalog of icons, tap the search button and type the name of the app you're looking for. Tap the icon that fits the best to apply it. Repeat this process for all other apps.
    • If an icon pack's catalog doesn't have the icon you want, search for a different one. You can apply icons from different icon packs in a single theme.
  5. Go back, then install and apply this new theme the same way you did earlier.

Here's a tip: When searching an icon catalog, you may not always find icons of the app you're looking for by typing its name. So, try typing a different but relevant term instead.

For instance, if you're looking for an icon of a racing game, search "car," "speed," "racing," or something similar instead of the actual name of the game. The idea here is that even if you can't find the perfect icon for your app, you'll at least find something that looks relevant.

If you did everything right, the end result will look a little something like this:

How to Hide Apps From the App Drawer

Despite all your best efforts, it's very likely that some of your apps will still be unchanged. This is inevitable. In this case, the best thing to do is to simply hide those apps from the app drawer so that they don't interrupt the look of other apps that did get new skins.

To hide apps from the app drawer, long-press an empty space on your Home screen and tap Settings. Now tap Hide apps and select all the apps you want to hide and tap Done to finish.

Applying Custom Icons Is Tough, but Worth It

One UI doesn't have native support for icon packs, but by using the Theme Park module in the Good Lock app, you can apply the same without downloading third-party Android launchers.

This way, you can continue using your phone like normal, but now with a sick new look. Feel free to install more icon packs from the Play Store and see which one fits you the best.