folderify

folderify

Generate pixel-perfect macOS folder icons in the native style (including for macOS 26 Tahoe).

• Automatically includes all icon sizes from 16x16 through 512x512@2x.
• Light or dark mode (automatically selected by default).

Using folderify? Let me know or let me know and I'd love to feature some real-world uses!

Install

Install folderify using Homebrew:

brew install folderify

Homebrew install is recommended, and automatically installs folderify argument completions for your shell.

See below for other installation options.

Usage

Use a mask to assign an icon to a folder:

folderify mask.png /path/to/folder

Generate mask.icns and mask.iconset files:

folderify mask.png

By default, folderify uses your system's current light/dark mode. Use --color-scheme to override this:

folderify --color-scheme dark mask.png

Note:

• There is currently no simple way to set an icon that will automatically switch between light and dark when you switch the entire OS. You can only assign one version of an icon to a folder.

Tips

For best results:

• Use a .png mask.
• Use a solid black design over a transparent background.
• Make sure the corner pixels of the mask image are transparent. They are used for empty margins.
• Pass the --no-trim flag and use a mask:
  • with a height of 384px,
  • with a width that is a multiple of 128px (up to 768px),
  • using a 16px grid.
  • Each 64x64 tile will exactly align with 1 pixel at the smallest icon size.

OS X (macOS 10)

Folder styles from OS X / macOS 10 are no longer supported by folderify as of v3:

• Leopard-style (OS X 10.5 to OS X 10.9)
• Yosemite-style (OS X 10.10 to macOS 10.15)

To generate these, please use folderify v2. For example:

# Using `uvx`: https://docs.astral.sh/uv/guides/tools/
uvx --from folderify folderify-v2 --macOS 10.5 path/to/icon.png

# Using `pip`
pip3 install folderify
python3 -m folderify --macOS 10.5 path/to/icon.png

Other installation options

If you don't have Homebrew but you already have ImageMagick (the magick binary) on your system, you can use the following:

Install using Rust

cargo install folderify

From source

Or download the code directly:

git clone https://github.com/lgarron/folderify && cd folderify

# Run directly
cargo run -- --reveal examples/src/folder_outline.png .

# Install (assuming the `cargo` bin is in your path)
cargo install --path .
folderify --reveal examples/src/folder_outline.png .

The repository folder should now have a custom icon.

# bash
for file in examples/src/*.png; do cargo run -- $file; done
open examples/src/

You should see a bunch of new .iconset folders and .icns files that were automatically generated from the .png masks.

Dependencies

• ImageMagick - for image processing (you should be able to run magick and identify on the commandline).
• Included with macOS:
  • iconutil
• Optional:
  • fileicon
  • sips, DeRez, Rez, SetFile (You need Xcode command line tools for some of these.)

Full options

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Example

Example generated from the Apple logo: