Get Color Sidebar Icons Back in Mac OS X 10.7 Lion Finder Windows
OS X Lion brought greyscale icons to the Mac OS X Finder window sidebar, but if you’d rather have some color back in your desktop window sidebars, you can get this done easily through a third party plugin.
If you’ve been following some of our other Lion tips, you may already have SIMBL installed, otherwise it’s a small download.
- Download and install SIMBL, which you can get here
- Download the ColorfulSidebar SIMBL plugin (direct link) or visit the developers home and mount the DMG file
- Move the ColorfulSidebar.bundle into the following SIMBL plugin folder:
- Either login and logout of Mac OS X, or just kill the Finder through the Terminal to relaunch it:
~/Library/Application Support/SIMBL/Plugins/
killall Finder
One oddity about this solution is that you may need to kill the Finder again to bring the color icons back after a full system reboot, otherwise this works trouble free.
If you ever want to get the grey icons back, you just need to remove the ColorfulSidebar.bundle file from the SIMBL plugins folder and then relaunch the Finder again.
On a somewhat related note, you can also bring back the personal folders in your OS X Lion Finder window sidebars. Those icons will gain color again too.
Super tips thanks so much. I really hated the gray.
I too am glad someone found a workaround for this. Thank you for posting it.
However my sidebar icons revert to grey, I believe when restating the computer. I tried to lock the ColorfulSidebar.bundle file but it doesn’t help.
I add this : the ColorfulSidebar.bundle only affects the Finder windows. It doesn’t colorize the open/save dialog boxes. Too bad.
In my case, it didn’t work even when I took all of the recommended steps….
Very disappointed
I hated the gray also and this changed it on the Sidebar, but not on the top bar where I have the Delete button, Get Info and New Folder icons.
I’d love to figure out how to re-colorize those icons on the top of a Finder window
I too would love to have colour available to make me faster as icons are easier to discern. And have a more enjoyable experience. This is why I have liked mac forever and now its turning bleak and pathetically uniform.
When I enter ~/Library/Application Support/SIMBL/Plugins/ I get an error back saying that “the folder can’t be found”. I really hope I can get it to work because I’m not a big fan of the greyscale icons too.
Never mind, when I searched for the folder manually I found it and got it to work. Thanks! That’s really a great tip.
When I enter ~/Library/Application Support/SIMBL/Plugins/ I get an error back saying that “the folder can’t be found”，so I searched for the folder manually but I cannot found it ，why？where is the finder？
THANK YOU!!!! I knew it would it would take someone with skills to create a third-party workaround. So relieved I can’t even tell you.
Now if there was only a way to get Devices back on top with Places/Favourites next in line…
this doesn’t work for me!
Yes, thank you developer and OSXDaily.com for notifying us all. I hate the bland icon color…or lack of.
Thank you!!!
Now does anyone know how to do this with the current version of iTunes?
I wrote a blog post a while ago with details and downloads for iTunes. Let me know if you have trouble: http://www.perezfox.com/2011/07/30/lion-taming/
The icon file for iTunes is not a valid link. Can you fix that link? I love color!
Sorry about that, the link should work now. I forget to add “.zip” to the download link. The .rsrc file is now in a .zip, it wouldn’t download otherwise.
Thanks!
Will this work with Snow Leopard?
[...] First, and perhaps most importantly for me, there’s now a way to get your coloured icons back in Finder’s sidebar! It’s done via a SIMBL plugin. Dead simple to use. Via OS X Daily, this post has all the details and downloads. [...]
You are my hero of the day. Thank you !!!
Works like a charm.
Thanks for all the ongoing Lion tips, they’ve been great. Keep it up!
Nice SIMBL plugin. A snap to install especially if you had previously installed SIMBL. I wonder if Apple was going for a ‘minimalist’ look with Lion? which doesn’t bother me.
Awesome, thanks for this tip. This shouldn’t have been left out by Apple.
Thank you for passing this on. Apple made some nice design tweaks in Lion but also some horrible, horrible choices. Which is it? Is the UI “getting out of the way” of the content? Or is it going skeumorphic and being quite happy to be the star of the show, as in Address Book and iCal? The thing about the Finder sidebar icons is that they are NOT a distraction from the content. In the Finder, they *are* the content. Glad to have the color back.
Now we just need to find a way to make the sidebar icons regain their color in Open/Save dialogs.
oh? I am about to download and install this thing and I assumed it would also fix the open/save dialogue box… hmm, most of my “quick nav” use for the side bar are coincidentally in said “open/Save” dialogue boxes. dang.
and like they all say, we need those devices backup on top. Darren, i’ve been a huge super user of macs since 2001 and this is the first time i’ve been pissed about apple’s choices in os design. I agree with everything you’ve just said up above. i’m glad to have my colors back.
This is not working for me. After a full shutdown and restart the changes don’t stick.
Me Too!!!
Apparently there is a problem with SIMBL holding the settings when machine is restarted at this point. I have written a small Applescript that you can put in your login items. Just go to System Preferences>Users and Groups and choose your account, throw the script in the login items window. Here is the URL where you can download the script: http://www.themacmob.com/downloads/Relaunch_Finder.zip
This will restart the Finder at login and enable the color icons in Finder
Thanks for this script. I was having to run the terminal each time I restarted.
Very useful script. Thanks!
Fantastic – Love it! Just done the same for iTunes too!!
Thanks again and again and again!
to many thanks my brother!! (L)
But now that enterprise is going after Apple the grey works really fine.
Interesting turn of events in regard to this “hack”… when I did a disk repair with Disk Utility – all was still good. Then I did a full-on maintenance with the Lion version of Onyx and all was grey again on start-up. I did a “killall Finder” in terminal and wa-laa (sp) when the Finder rebooted, all the colour was back. Maybe it is because we spell colour here with a “u”.
Cheers
Interesting turn of events in regard to this “hack”… when I did a disk repair with Disk Utility – all was still good. Then I did a full-on maintenance with the Lion version of Onyx and all was grey again on start-up. I did a “killall Finder” in terminal and wa-laa (sp) when the Finder rebooted, all the colour was back. Maybe it is because we spell colour here with a “u”.
Cheers
Nice, now my finder has color again .. many thanks for the tip
Installed and beautiful color icons but after restart system again grey icons…..!!! Any update or I missed any installation…?
TIA
…
After “killall Finder” in Terminal… again color icons. Every time I have to do this terminal action at system restart…?
Yes, as mentioned in the article it’s a quirk with SIMBL. You could always make a small startup script to kill the finder automatically though.
If you don’t feel like launching Terminal every time or writing a script, you can just press Cmd+Opt+Esc to bring up the force quit menu, select finder and press “relaunch”
I can’t seem to get the colour back in the Save and Open dialogue boxes. Anyone else had this problem?
i can’t to leave the icons of finder to color,
i need to this definitively, please.
As soon as I changed the icons back to the coloured version, I noticed it made me much more happy with Lion than I was up till now! However, same problem as Prescott. All the icons are still grey in the Save and Open dialogue boxes.
[...] elements and icons, some people like the change and others don’t. We just showed you how to get color icons back in the OS X Lion Finder sidebars, and in the comments, Perez Fox posted a resource file that works to bring the color sidebar icons [...]
thought I’d add that this didn’t work for me either
oops, put the bundle into the SIMBL folder – should have put it into the actual plugin folder there…. now it works!!
What an absolute waste of time! Good grief!
Excellent. Works like a charm and brightens up finder windows. Can also home into the right icon without searching(after all humans are visual beings).
Frank says:
August 26, 2011 at 3:38 pm
What an absolute waste of time! Good grief!
Take a moment to enjoy the little pleasures in life. As you rightly say, Life is too short.
Woohoo!! It worked!
I ran into a problem after installing SIMBL. The folder wouldn’t show up in my Finder. I had to open Finder, hit CMD+Shift+G and type “/Library/Application Support/SIMBL” (without the ~ in front) in order to get to the folder).
Thanks so much for this!
WASTE OF TIME!!!
This works great in Finder until, as others have pointed out, you restart. Is there any way to make this a permanent change? I can’t believe there isn’t a way to customise on a permanent basis, this most ugly and anti-user-interface feature in Lion.
There must be some wizzo guy out there who can tweak it?
Ditto – I’d love a way to make the changes permanent, rather than have to re-start the Finder every morning.
Can someone write an Automator/AppleScript that can be put in the “launched at login” user panel?
I have tried to install SIMBL several times and it does not show up. I am running Lion
I am having same problem
nevermind!! i hit CMD SHIFT G and typed in /Library/Application Support/SIMBL (without the ~)
I moved the SIMBL to other library than the one it installed itself in, works now, sometimes you have to relaunch the finder twice (mere seconds) – so not yet permanent better than the gray anyday. Alternative is using Path Finder or Forklift apps as partial replacement for finder – they are both very worthy beasts. Those who chastise we gray-dislikers should fade to it…
THANKS FOR THIS FIX! If God wanted a gray sidebar…
When I download SIMBL I can’t find it’s files anywhere. Colorful Sidebar downloaded fine but can’t find SIMBL anywhere!!
Brilliant! Worked perfectly. Thanks for the tip.
Yes worked great, happiness ensued all day…until I restarted and they reverted. This happen to anyone else?
Can’t find the colorfulsidebar site/file anywhere… is the site gone or just swamped?
link: http://cooviewerzoom.web.fc2.com/colorfulsidebar.html
http://cooviewerzoom.web.fc2.com/ColorfulSidebar1.0.dmg.zip
[...] Get colour Sidebar icons in Lion [...]
Sorted! main library not user library.
Now how about colourful icons in mail app?
This was pure gold!
I like to use colors to quickly identify the items under favorites (and elsewhere), and the gray was really a pain in that regard.
[...] that’s pretty easy to fix, and ZDnet has a few good ways to do it. This SIMBL plugin will put a little color back in those icons, if you like, and you can do a little plist tweaking in [...]
[...] that's pretty easy to fix, and ZDnet has a few good ways to do it. This SIMBL plugin will put a little color back in those icons, if you like, and you can do a little plist tweaking in [...]
This is so great – thanks for the tip!
[...] flat and grey, did I mention grey. UPDATE: you can get the colour back by following instructions here.• Reverse scrolling, on a touch interface yes (feel completely natural on my iPad), but with a [...]
[...] you want to restore colour icons in the Finder follow the instructions here. The usual caveats apply. SIMBL has caused problems in the past as it is an unsupported hack for [...]
[...] ที่มา OSX Daily รีวิว Pocket RPG เกมส์ RPG เล็กๆ มันๆ สมชื่อ /* [...]
[...] many people have already written (and made youtube videos too) about how to use the bundle, so this post is just for on additional [...]
There’s an easier and cleaner way top make the finder relaunch on every boot, use a launchagent plist.
I have two available for download (one for regular use and one for people using totalfinder) here:
http://girlintroverted.wordpress.com/2011/08/28/color-sidebar-icons-in-osx-10-7-finder/
cheers
if your don’t want to use terminal to relaunch Finder just hit CMD +ESC tabs to bring up Force Quit window, scroll over Finder and the “Force quit’ tab changes to ‘Relaunch’
Works perfect for me! ..I’m still scared of Terminal
For me, I think Apple should provide a checkbox for classic operation for everything they changed in Lion. My solution for the loss of colour in all instances is to NOT upgrade to Lion until they have corrected their oversight. Perhaps everybody should not upgrade to Lion until Apple addresses the issue. It would be interesting to see what effect that would have on their sales, wouldn’t it?
None. They don’t make money on the OS. They make it on the hardware. And all new Macs ship with Lion, and all the currently shipping MacBooks and Mac Minis can’t even be downgraded.
Apple has no interest any longer in Mac OS X. They have committed so many fundamental errors in this OS. They seem only to care about iOS.
A really pity, because it used to be an excellent product.
Thank you, thank you! So much easier to find items on *ahem* Finder now! And prettier, too.
Hey, I am really happy about this. I have been using it for a while now. Today I updated and restarted my machine and it reverted back to the grey color. Any kind of help would be much appreciated. Thanks
[...] nervous. But having color on the sidebar is worth it. You can find all the info for doing this at OS X Daily along with installation [...]
thanks for the tweak ur good
thank you so much.
- Would there be a work-aroundto change it permanently systemwide, like iTunes and other apps with a sidebar
- will the changes still be there after an update?
[...] 8-25-11: OSX Daily posted a way to get colored icons back in the Finder using an app called SIMBL and a plug in. I [...]
[...] Yes. You can get the color in the sidebar icons here. [...]
Thanks sooooooooooooo much, finally I can use the finder again without ruining my eyes looking for everything. What the f. possessed apple to change to monochrome?
btw, dev needs to put a donate button, I ll gladly help someone making such a nice gesture.
Thanks a lot! It works!!!!
I was tired to be color blind
This is great! However I have a question: Has anyone figured out how to change the gray icons in Apple’s Mail program? I hate those damn gray icons SO much. If I can’t figure out a way to fix that I may just switch to Thunderbird – at least they don’t force users to look at an awful bland gray color.
it worked for me…thank you so much for sharing!!!
Worked flawlessly. Thanks so much!
So nice to have this back. So ANGRY that they ever did it in the first place! At least they should’ve made it an option. What would’ve been so wrong with having a radio button in prefs? Grey? Not grey.
NOT GREY!!!!!
THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! No more gray in my MBP!!!!!
Oh my gosh! Badabing. I feel like I put on glasses for the first time. I can see so clearly now. No more dropping files on the wrong app to open. Thank you so much!!!!
I’m going to be a broken record here, so I might as well start with a “thank you” to all the great people that brought us this excellent tip.
Now the broken record part: How do we make this permanent?
I’m really bummed that Apple doesn’t have a simple option to check in the preference panel regarding this and other changes in Lion. It would be great to be able to revert back to the “classic” look if we don’t like Apple’s new design for the OS. I’ve already left them a feature request. Hopefully, I won’t have to pay $30 for the upgrade
I made a post below on how to make it permanent. Hope it helps.
Hey guys,
As you may know, or will find out, the icons go back to grey when you restart or boot up Lion. To get the colours back you need to relaunch Finder.
To get around this, you need to set the Finder to relaunch at every startup. Best and easiest way to do this is to download the script from user Jocelyn above. Here’s the link: http://girlintroverted.wordpress.com/2011/08/28/color-sidebar-icons-in-osx-10-7-finder/
Once you have it, move it somewhere you’ll keep it for good like Applications.
Go to System Preferences > Users and Groups > Login Items > click on the + and look for the script and add it > check the box to have it run at every start up.
That oughta’ do it.
Yay, this worked like a charm! And now I can use CandyBar to change the icons again. Thank you!
I’m having an increasingly terrible problem relating to this. when working the screen blinks while moving between spaces, which also seems to make finder consume a vast amount of memory, desktop is visible through windows and desktop items disappear. Though sometimes when i boot and find that the sidebar is in its original dull grey state the problem doesn’t exist. I’m on Lion 10.7.2. Can you help me please to resolve this problem or guide me through removing all the necessary files and folders to completely remove it.
much appreciated smx
Great!
Thanks! worked fine exactly as instructed!, I rebooted then killed Finder and reopened it. (MBA 13.3″ i7 latest Lion OS X 2/12)
I find that Simbl unexpectantly quits every 15 min or so.
Any suggestions?