Where Mac System Icons & Default Icons Are Located in Mac OS X
The system icons of Mac OS X decorate nearly everything found within the Finder and desktop, ranging from default folder icons, to the default icons of hard disks, network machines, even the Finder sidebar items, and some toggles found throughout Mac OS X. If you’ve ever wanted to access the full size original resources for these system icons, you’ll find they are intentionally buried within the operating system, but that doesn’t mean you can’t access them, copy them, or even change them if you want to.
For those who just want to poke around and already know why, the location of Mac OS X system icons is the following path:
/System/Library/CoreServices/CoreTypes.bundle/Contents/Resources/
To get there and to find the Mac OS X system icon resource files, you can either manually navigate to the given system folder from Finder, use the Terminal, or better yet, use the excellent Go To shortcut and jump their immediately. We’ll cover the latter method, since it’s usually the quickest and most user friendly.
How to Locate & Access All Mac OS X System Icons
- Open a new Finder window from the Mac OS X Desktop and hit Command+Shift+G (or go to the “Go” menu and choose “Go To Folder”
- Paste in the following complete file system path in Go To Folder:
- Choose “Go” and you’ll instantly be brought to the appropriate resources folder containing all system icons for Mac OS X that are found throughout the Mac
/System/Library/CoreServices/CoreTypes.bundle/Contents/Resources/
The folder is best viewed in “icon” view with a reasonably visible icon size, which perhaps isn’t too surprising considering this the system icon folder.
You’ll find the directory contains tons of “.icns” files, these are the raw icon files for various system icons, including the default folder icons used for Applications, Documents, Desktop, Downloads, Developer, Generic (the default for a new folder), Group, Library, Music, Movies, Pictures, Public, and quite literally every other default icon, like mounted external drives, network volumes and computers, iPhones, Macs, and just about everything else.
All of the Mac OS X default icons are stored here. You can use the ‘search’ function to break it down by specifics, narrowing down by ‘Folder’ will show you only the default folder icons used on the Mac:
This folder also happens to be where a whole bunch of high quality Apple and Mac hardware icons are located, which are used by System Profiler, for networking, and by iTunes, but you can copy them and use them for other purposes too if you feel like it. For example, we used one of these hardware icons in a walkthrough demonstrating how to change the Dock Finder icon.
Modifying Mac System Icons
Modifying system icons is generally not recommended, particularly for novice users. If you have any intention on changing a system icon or several of them, do back up the original .icns files first, and preferably, back up the entire Mac beforehand with Time Machine or your backup method of choice. This insures that you can revert things back to normal if you mess something up.
With that said, each system icon .icns file can be modified or changed, either directly by copying over the icns file, using copy and paste much like changing most other icons on the Mac, or even by editing the .icns file directly in Preview or another image editing app.
Regardless of what method you use to edit or change the icons, you will need administrator privileges to save or make any changes to the files stored here, given that this is a /System folder. Again, don’t make any changes if you don’t know what you’re doing and haven’t backed up the Mac, you can easily mess something up and render things in Mac OS X quite odd looking by misappropriating icons, incorrectly modifying a file, or using an inappropriate size.
And here is where macOS Big Sur 11.5 Beta (20G5023d) hides them:
/System/Library/CoreServices/IconsetResources.bundle/Contents/ResourcesAny idea where Ventura hides them? Trying to find a Mac Studio icon.
AH, FOUND ‘EM!
/System/Library/Extensions/IOSCSIArchitectureModelFamily.kext/Contents/Resources/
and
/System/Library/Extensions/IOStorageFamily.kext/Contents/Resources/
Lots of stuff in there, no doubt, but there’s no SD card icon in that folder, it seems. There’s gotta be another place …
Thank you, this helped. :)
how come when i change the .icns for lets say, general folder, ALL general folders do not change.? how do i get this to happen?
You are in luck.
Here’s an app for that: LiteIcon, and there is a version for Sierra:
http://freemacsoft.net/liteicon/
Be sure to follow intstallation README instructions; there is a terminal command you have to run to temporarily disable SIP (System Integrity Protection).
Here’s the app’s interface— you can see there is ability to change the Generic Folder icon:
http://imgur.com/wEfYLnb
And here’s the way my “new folders” all look now:
http://imgur.com/zYfSvZS
Thanks, I got the app on Yosemite but there’s no README and the only thing that happens when I drag a generic folder icon on the Generic button, the button gets highlighted but there is no way to change the icon appearance??
Anybody know where the file lives that shows your battery is completely drained on OS X? I couldn’t find it in /System/Library/CoreServices/CoreTypes.bundle/Contents/Resources/
I have a corruption that only presents itself when my computer is completely dead and I press the power button. Instead of showing the too low to power on battery symbol– I get garbled blocked. I think I can replace this file to get it fixed? Already tried no OS from scratch and new computer. Keeps coming back so it must be in my files somewhere. . .
Where are the internal hard drive icon files located?
Are these images copyrighted?
So, now that we’re on Yosemite – has anybody found the Finder icon yet?
The Finder app itself is in ~System/Library/CoreServices as per usual, and you can change the icon for that with ‘Get Info’ as always besides putting the new Finder.icns file into the package’s Contents/Resources folder, and you can also overwrite the FinderIcon.icns file in the CoreTypes bundle.
All that is just as it was on Mavericks. But now, do all that, clear the icons cache, killall Finder, restart the system… and I’ve still got that perky little blue and white thing sitting down there on my dock. Mystery!
Mark, those are in the PreferencePanes folder of System/Library. The are in the “.prefpane” bundle’s resource files
Where would the Bluetooth Keyboard and Mouse icons be? These are the ones that show up when you connect or disconnect these devices.
Cant open the bundle file… so,…. no. does not work
(10.9.4)
I assure you it does work, you’re probably entering the full path wrong.
yes, i found my issue… no need to be snarky tho…
He or she didn’t seem very snarky to me; there is no need to be overly sensitive.
The original comment by James was the snarky one. smh James
I struggled with that, too. But, if you meticulously follow their instructions it will work. If I can get it to work, anyone can.
All of the new iOS device icons are located in CoreTypes.bundle, just not resources. It is in Plugins I think…
I found that long ago… There are more icons in the Frameworks and other Apple apps’ resource folder
Ummm, so . . . . . where are the mouse pointer icons?
Every time there’s a new OS X release, I go check out the system icons. It’s interesting that there are still a lot of older icons still present. Mobile Me is now iCloud, but the icon is still there. I wouldn’t advise anyone go screw around with these icons unless they know what they’re doing (most don’t).