The 7 Best Ubuntu Icon Themes of 2020

Papirus is a colorful flat icon theme that provides a whole set of icons for nearly every application you can imagine on Linux. While Papirus doesn’t stray far from original application icons, it does have a style uniquely its own. If you’re not a fan of overly stylized icons, this one is a fantastic option. All of your apps will be easily recognizable.

Papirus also has an advantage when it comes to the size of its icon library. It’s absolutely massive. There are literally thousands of icons available through Papirus, covering applications, actions, and the icons in your panel. There’s no need to worry about mixed fallback icon sets

Download Papirus for Ubuntu

Numix has been around for a long time, and for good reason. It was one of the first truly artistic icon themes for Linux systems. Currently, Numix offers two different icon variants, circle and square.

Both Numix icon themes are flat and fairly colorful, although their colors are somewhat muted. Because the Numix sets are mostly flat, they’ll fit in with bot material and flat themes very well. As you’d expect with a project that’s been around as long as Numix has, it features a substantial library of icons for a ton of different applications that you’d typically find on Linux.

Download Numix for Ubuntu

Xenlism Wildfire isn’t talked about nearly as frequently as some of the other entries on this list. That’s mostly because it’s a relatively new arrival. It’s more than deserving of its place, though. This theme really stands out.

If you’re looking for something that’s seriously bold with saturated colors and unique icons, you should seriously give Xenlism Wildfire a shot. It features a fairly extensive library of icons that are both visually impressive and minimal. Xenlism Wildfire does have a fairly extensive library of icons, but it needs a few more. You might find a few things that aren’t covered just yet.

Download Xenlism Wildfire for Ubuntu

Oranchelo is an interesting mix of flat and 3D that uses shadows to create a surprising degree of depth in otherwise entirely flat icons. The result is something that can quite literally create a new dimension in your flat or material desktop theme.

Oranchelo icons feature a high degree of contrast and a vibrant color palette. Interestingly, Oranchelo was originally designed for the XFCE desktop, but you can absolutely pair it with GNOME, Cinnamon, or any other major desktop, although it tends to look better with a Material Design theme.

Download Oranchelo for Ubuntu

It should be pretty clear what the primary feature of the Shadow icon theme is. This theme creates a surprising degree of depth in icons highly saturated, vivid icons. These are almost all inspired by each application’s default, making them easily identifiable and somewhat more striking.

These shadowy icons probably aren’t best for a flat or minimal desktop, but if you’re looking for something that really stands out, they’re unbeatable.

Download Shadow for Ubuntu

Lüv is a relatively new theme that provides material-like icons for just about any style of desktop. Lüv’s icons use the Material color scheme, but not the full guidelines. Even still, they’ll fit in well with a Material theme.

This theme uses easily recognizable icons with a twist all its own. One of the aims of Lüv is to have its icons, even for document types, identifiable at a glance. The Material colors that Lüv uses stand out, and provide a decent degree of contrast.

Download Lüv for Ubuntu