How to customize your Mac's folder icons
Recently I came across this post by Collin Donnell which shortly highlights that you can create your own custom folder icons with Folderify and SF Symbols. If that's enough for you to get started then go for it! Otherwise here's a bit more info on that.
But before, let me reminisce of the time where we themed absolutely every User Interface we could lay our hands on. This kinda reminds me of that time, and apart from changing your apps icons, there not much else that you can customize about your OS these days.
Folderify
Folderify is a command line tool that allows you to "Generate pixel-perfect macOS folder icons in the native style."
If you didn't click the link, their screenshot showcases it best:
That's great but, where will I get nice, well designed, transparent PNGs for my folder icons?
That's where SF Symbols comes in. Normally a tool for developers, it contains a repository of many Apple designed icons ready for you to use.
If you download the app, you have the option to right click and icon and choose "Copy Image" (or "Copy Image As..." if you want more customization, which you will if you want the png to be a decent size), and then paste the image into whatever Finder folder you prefer.
From there, use folderify to put that image you just pasted into a folder of your choice, and you're done!
What if SF Symbols is not enough?
In this case I recommend Font Awesome. They have a big repository of free (and paid) icons you can download as an SVG (and folderify will take your SVGs!) which look great on folders.
If you're looking for the logo of a specific project or tool, you can look under their press releases or even straight into their code repositories. You'll probably find a logo PNG or SVG there for you to use. I did this for the Svelte logo for example.
The last resort is to just google something like "whatever icon svg" in google and find one that suits your needs. If you download one from an indie artist though, considering tipping them from making your folder look pretty :)
Here's how my Projects folder ended up looking like. Pretty neat in my opinion!
Sorry, but I need a step-by-step guide
To the best of my ability, here you go: (if it looks like many steps, it's because I'm trying to make it as clear as I can. Not everyone is familiar with the tools involved).
- Folderify requires Homebrew, so first open the Terminal app. Go to the Homebrew homepage and copy that command under the big "Install Homebrew" text.
- Paste that weird stuff into the Terminal app. Maybe press Enter if nothing happens.
- If you don't want to deal with the Terminal app yet, you can download an installer from the Homebrew releases page. Click the
Homebrew-4.2.20.pkglink under the "Assets" section (note that the numbers may be different, that's okay!)
- Install Folderify.
- Yes, you have to paste that command (the one starting with
brew) into the Terminal app. This time there's no way around it.
- Yes, you have to paste that command (the one starting with
- Run Folderify like this
folderify rust.svg rust-folder - The first part is just invoking the Folderify tool.
- The second part is the path to your icon. If you don't know how to access it from the terminal, find the file in Finder, right click it, hover to the "Copy" menu, and press Alt + click. This will copy the path. Now you can paste it after the
folderifykeyword. - The third part is the folder you want to have the icon. You can do that same trick you did in the previous step to copy the folder's path.
- Now you should have something like this in your terminal:
folderify /Users/angelo/Misc/folderify-resources/android.svg /Users/angelo/Projects/Android. Try executing it! (press enter) - If everything went allright, you should see the tool's output with a few progress bars. when they are complete, you should see your folder having the new icon. Success!!