August 22nd, 2021

Custom macOS Directory Icons

This weekend I’ve been updating my dotfiles and noticed that my Code and go directories in my home directory were missing icons. This isn’t a huge deal but I enjoy consistency and nice designs so I thought I’d spend 10 minutes and see if I could find some nice icons for them.

After a few minutes looking around I came across lgarron/folderify on GitHub. This project takes a PNG layer mask and overlays it on-top of the correct macOS folder image. This is exactly what I wanted!

Here’s the end-result of the process:

How to Generate Folders with Icons

Run brew install folderify to install the tool that will create our folders icons for us.
Download the desired PNG’s that are black with transparent backgrounds.
- For my go directory I downloaded this Go SVG and convrted it into a png.
- For my Code directory I downloaded this git png logo.
Run folderify ~/Downloads/icon_name.png replacing icon_name.png with the name of your png layer masks.
Right click on the target directory in Finder and choose Get Info from the dropdown list.
In the Get Info window you just opened, drag the newly generated folder icon over the default folder icon located at the top of the window.
Enjoy your new custom directory icons!