Ubuntu contributors are currently floating designs for a new bin icon that’ll sit in the dock possibly as soon as with the release of Ubuntu 25.10 in October. The conversation about the appearance of the trash icon in Ubuntu was going on in 2019 until it was closed in March of that year. The discussion was reopened again this year in May with updated icons being suggested on a regular basis.
The main criticism of the existing trash can icon is that without the recycling icon, it kind of looks like a letter box, rather than a bin. When the bin has files in it, the papers that appear in the bin look quite neat, like letters, boosting the impression that it’s a post box, rather than a bin.
Designs that are being suggested now are fully open at the top to make it clearer that it's a bin and when there are files inside it shows crumpled papers. The designer, ochi12, has published several iterations of the icons and put them in different sizes to see how it’d look in different use cases. The latest version definitely seems to survive being shrunk down to smaller sizes.
Right now, the designer is still being given feedback by other contributors so that ones that have been made so far are unlikely to be what shows up in Ubuntu, if one is ever agreed upon. That’s an important point too, the change may never be agreed to and it could be that we never see the change materialize.
Notably, some people who commented said they liked the existing bin icon and hope it doesn’t change, showing the subjective nature of what makes for a good trash bin icon. Hopefully, we get some consensus on a design so that Ubuntu users can get a more fresh experience when upgrading to upcoming versions of Ubuntu.
There is still a lot of time until Ubuntu 25.10 drops in October so it’s feasible we could see the new icon by then, but if not, maybe we’ll see it in Ubuntu 26.04 LTS.
Source: GitHub via OMG Ubuntu
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