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fileicon — introduction

fileicon is a macOS CLI for managing custom icons for files and folders, as a programmatic alternative to interactively using Finder.

fileicon allows assigning a custom icon to any file or folder, using any image file whose format is recognized by the system.

Caveats:

  • Custom icons rely on extended attributes of the macOS filesystems, HFS+ and APFS. Therefore, custom icons are lost when copying files or folders to filesystems that don't support these attributes; for instance, custom icons cannot be stored in a Git repository.

  • v0.3.2+ supports custom icons for volumes (folders that act as volume mountpoints) in principle, but, as of macOS 13.1 (Ventura), this often fails in practice, for reasons unknown to me; see this Ask Different question, for instance.

When assigning an image file with fileicon set, a set of icons in several resolutions is created and stored in the resource fork of the target file itself / of a hidden Icon\r file inside the target folder / as the content of a hidden .VolumeIcon.icns file for folders that are volume mountpoints. Addtionally, a com.apple.FinderInfo extended attribute with the custom-icon attribute (flag) is set on the target file or folder itself.

The icon with the highest resolution measures 512 x 512 pixels, and the input image is scaled accordingly.
Note that input images that aren't square can result in distorted icons; for best results, provide square images.

If you supply an input path to a symlink, it is invariably its target that is used for the operation; symlinks themselves cannot have icons associated with them.

See also: Icon Changer, a GUI utility that uses fileicon behind the scenes.

Examples

# Assign custom icon derived from image file 'img.png' to file 'foo':
fileicon set foo img.png

# Remove previously assigned custom icon from folder 'foodir':
fileicon rm foodir

# Extract custom icon from file 'foo' to icon file 'foo.icns':
fileicon get foo

# Test if folder 'foodir' has custom icon:
fileicon test foodir

Installation

Supported platforms:

  • macOS

Important:

  • If you're running macOS 12 (Monterey) or higher, be sure to install at least version 0.3.1 of this utility, as it no longer relies on Python (which no longer ships with macOS).
  • Unfortunately, a bug beyond fileicon's control causes the get sub-command (for extracting an existing icon) to be excessively slow on macOS 12 (Monterey); this has been fixed in macOS 13 (Ventura).

Installation via Homebrew

With Homebrew installed, run the following:

brew install fileicon

Tip of the hat to @danielbayley for creating and submitting the formula.

Installation from the npm registry

With Node.js installed, install the package as follows:

[sudo] npm install fileicon -g

Note:

  • Whether you need sudo depends on how you installed Node.js and whether you've changed permissions later; if you get an EACCES error, try again with sudo.
  • The -g ensures global installation and is needed to put fileicon in your system's $PATH.

Manual installation

  • Download the CLI as fileicon.
  • Make it executable with chmod +x fileicon.
  • Move it or symlink it to a folder in your $PATH, such as /usr/local/bin (requires sudo).

Usage

Find concise usage information below; for complete documentation, read the manual online, or, once installed, run man fileicon (fileicon --man if installed manually).

$ fileicon --help


Manage custom icons for files and folders on macOS.  

SET a custom icon for a file or folder:

    fileicon set      <fileOrFolder> [<imageFile>]

REMOVE a custom icon from a file or folder:

    fileicon rm       <fileOrFolder>

GET a file or folder's custom icon:

    fileicon get [-f] <fileOrFolder> [<iconOutputFile>]

    -f ... force replacement of existing output file

TEST if a file or folder has a custom icon:

    fileicon test     <fileOrFolder>

All forms: option -q silences status output.

Standard options: --help, --man, --version, --home

License

Copyright (c) 2015-2022 Michael Klement mklement0@gmail.com (http://same2u.net), released under the MIT license.

Acknowledgements

This project gratefully depends on the following open-source components, according to the terms of their respective licenses.

npm dependencies below have optional suffixes denoting the type of dependency; the absence of a suffix denotes a required run-time dependency: (D) denotes a development-time-only dependency, (O) an optional dependency, and (P) a peer dependency.

npm dependencies

Changelog

Versioning complies with semantic versioning (semver).

  • ** v0.3.4 == v0.3.3** (2023-03-02):

  • v0.3.2 (2022-12-29):

  • v0.3.1 (2022-04-07):

    • [compatibility] Removed dependency on Python in favor of AppleScript with its ObjC bridge, courtesy of @scriptingosx

  • v0.3.0 (2022-02-11):

    • [compatibility] Added support for using an available python3 on macOS 12.3+, where the system v2.x /usr/bin/python will no longer be avaialble.

  • v0.2.4 (2019-12-10):

    • [installation] Thanks to @danielbayley, there is now an official Homebrew formula.

  • v0.2.3 (2019-11-01):

    • [enhancement] Installation via Homebrew is now possible on macOS.
    • [doc] README.md updated with Homebrew installation instructions.
    • [dev] Updated dev-time-only packages to fix security issues.

  • v0.2.2 (2018-03-05):

    • [enhancement] filecon set <file> is now short for filecon set <file> <file>; that is, you can now more conveniently make an image file use itself as its icon.

  • v0.2.1 (2018-01-13):

    • [doc] Read-me improvements re supported image formats.
    • [enhancement] Improved wording of error message on attempting to use a pipe such as via a process subsitution (<(...)) in lieu of an actual image file, which is not supported.

  • v0.2.0 (2017-10-14):

    • [compatibility] macOS 10.13 (High Sierra) is now supported.
    • [enhancement] Switched from using sips -i for icon creation to a Python-based Cocoa call to NSWorkSpace.setIcon(_:forFile:options:), courtesy of https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/161984/28668 As a result, icons in multiple resolutions are now generated, with a top resolution of 512 x 512 pixels (previously: 128 x 128)
    • [doc] More technical background added to README.md.
    • [usability] subcommands are now case-insensitive, and 'remove' is supported as an alias of 'rm'.

  • v0.1.8 (2016-04-21):

    • [dev] Refactored exit-code reporting for the 'get' command (no change in functionality.)
    • [dev] TODO.md added.

  • v0.1.7 (2016-04-21):

    • [fix] Stored-npm-credentials detection code in the Makefile updated for newer npm versions.
    • [fix] Folder write test is now properly skipped for 'get' and 'test' commands - thanks, @zmwangx.
    • [fix] 'get' command now properly reports errors if icon extracton fails - thanks, @zmwangx.
    • [dev] Insignificant trailing whitespace removed - thanks, @zmwangx.
    • [dev] Added folder used by tests that was missing from the repo.

  • v0.1.6 (2015-09-16):

    • [doc] Man-page improvements.
    • [dev] Makefile improvements.

  • v0.1.5 (2015-09-15):

    • [doc] Man-page improvements.
    • [dev] Makefile improvements.

  • v0.1.4 (2015-09-14):

    • [fix] Spurious error message no longer prints when invoking fileicon --man on a system where the man page isn't installed.
    • [doc] Read-me improvements.

  • v0.1.3 (2015-09-02):

    • [dev, doc] minor tweaks

  • v0.1.2 (2015-08-04):

    • [doc] Read-me and manual enhancements.

  • v0.1.1 (2015-08-03):

    • [doc] Read-me and manual enhancements.
    • [dev] Permission-related tests added.

  • v0.1.0 (2015-08-03):

    • Initial release.