How to Change Folder Icons on a Mac (2023)

Do you want to replace the classic Mac folder icon with an image of your choice? In macOS, you can do this quite easily and it’s really very simple. Changing the image of the folder icons on Mac is not only a purely aesthetic practice but can be a good way to better organize the system by diversifying the folders that would otherwise be all the same. In this guide, I will suggest you read the next paragraphs, where I will explain in detail how to change folder icons on Mac.

How Do You Change Folder Icons on a Mac in 2023

In this tutorial, I will show you how to change the icon of a folder on the macOS desktop, but the procedure is the same for any icon on your Mac.

The best part is that macOS by default already allows you to change the icons of files and folders that you can replace with any image or other icons downloaded from the internet. However, since it is not really a mouse-click operation, it is not much used by users, even if, as we will see in the following guide, it is really very simple.

• On your Mac system, create or download an Image first.
• After that double click on the same image to open it with Preview.
• In the menu bar, you need to click on the Edit button.
• Now you need to click on the “Select all” menu.
• Press the CMD + C keys together on your keyboard to copy the image to the clipboard.
• Find the icon you want to customize and right-click on it.
• Click on the option “Get Info”.
• From the Get Info window, click on the folder icon in the top left.
• Press the key combination CMD + V on your keyboard to paste the image previously copied to the clipboard.
• Now the image will be changed immediately and you will have your custom icon.
• If for any reason, you decide to reset the edit icon, then follow the steps given below:
  • Right-click on the desired icon and select the item “Get information”.
  • From the “Get Info” window, click on the folder icon in the upper left corner.
  • Press the CMD + X keys from the keyboard to cut the image and restore the default icon.

And that is everything you need to know about how to change folder icons on Mac. If you are interested in getting more Mac Tips and Tricks, check out our other guides on How to Type the Degree° Symbol on iPhone, iPad, and Mac, and How to Set Finder Default Folder on Mac.