# How To: Add a Script/AppImage/Executable as an Icon in the GUI

**URL:** https://forum.clockworkpi.com/t/how-to-add-a-script-appimage-executable-as-an-icon-in-the-gui/22730
**Category:** uConsole
**Tags:** icons, software, menu, raspiberrypi
**Created:** [June 19, 2026, 2:37am UTC](https://forum.clockworkpi.com/t/how-to-add-a-script-appimage-executable-as-an-icon-in-the-gui/22730 "2026-06-19T02:37:14Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![gh057](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex029/user_avatar/forum.clockworkpi.com/gh057/32/16970_2.png) [@gh057](https://forum.clockworkpi.com/u/gh057)
#### Post date: [June 19, 2026, 2:37am UTC](https://forum.clockworkpi.com/t/how-to-add-a-script-appimage-executable-as-an-icon-in-the-gui/22730/1 "2026-06-19T02:37:14Z")

</div>

One of the biggest UX productivity boosts that you can do is to add an icon to the Raspberry Pi Main Menu or to the desktop which will launch an executable or a script, doubly so when you have a device which doesn’t have a full-sized screen and full-sized keyboard and mouse. Typically when you install software from the “Add / Remove Software” tool or through the use of `apt`, if the software has a GUI, then this icon is done for you. However, wouldn’t it be awesome to do the same thing for software which doesn’t do this automatically or custom scripts that you’ve created? Here’s how you do it very easily. This process starts off assuming that you’ve already downloaded or created functioning software. If you’re code isn’t working, then this process isn’t going to help much. 😉

For the sake of this tutorial, we’re going to call our ficticious software `clockwork-demo-tool`.

## Create the `.desktop` File

1. `cd /usr/share/applications`. This is where you’re going to store all of your custom `.desktop` files. if you do a quick directory list (`ls`) here you’ll see that there are a ton of them here. While you can easily copy one of those and makd e changes, often you’ll end up copying more than you need.

2. `sudo nano clockwork-demo-tool.desktop`: Using your favorite command line editor (I’m going to use `nano` here but you can just as easily use `vi` or `pico`) create the desktop file. You can name it anything that you want, but I tend to prefer to name it the same as the app itself (or something as close to it as possible).

3. Add the following to your new `.desktop` file:  
`[Desktop Entry]`  
`Name=Clockwork Demo Tool`  
`Comment=This is our Demo`  
`Type=Application`  
`Exec=/PATH/TO/EXECUTABLE`  
`Icon=/usr/share/icons/Custom/clockwork-demo-tool.png`  
`Categories=Utility;`  
`Terminal=False;`

4. Once done, save that file and you’re good to go.

## Download the Icon

Find the icon for the software that you are creating the `.desktop` file for and safe it to `/usr/share/icons/Custom/clockwork-demo-tool.png`. Keep in mind that if `/usr/share/icons/Custom` doesn’t exist in your device, you’ll have to create it or come up with another location to save your apps.

## That’s it!

It’s really that simple. If you set up your Categories correctly, then the icon should show up within a few seconds. If you’re adding it to your Desktop, then you should be able to add it as usual. I have used this process in the past to run a shell script which sets up Monitor Mode when a specific antenna is plugged in. This is really helpful for quickly running commands where the lack of a full-sized keyboard is a huge problem.