Changing Folder Icons Big Sur

[borp99]

Changing folder icons on a secondary container/partition was very buggy with 11.0.1. I had to enable root, then copy/paste the icon. It'd work once, but then stop working, so I had to restart completely and do it for the other icons, bit by bit. I suspect this is a bug, because it'd work initially, then stop working altogether until a restart. Non-sensical.

I ended up just booting into Safe Boot, logging into root instead of my normal account, then was able to change all the icons I wanted to. (I changed the icon for my main Macintosh HD disk, the Data partition I created as a container, and some folders on the Data partition. Incidentally, for the Macintosh HD disk, I used the Big Sur main icon, which you can locate by opening the macOS Installer application in Preview, then selecting a specific icon you want, then copying it. However, for a full guarantee, I used Image2Icon, free from the App Store.) After doing all of this, I just re-disabled root and never had to worry about it again (so far, anyway—hopefully the 11.0.2 or 11.1 update won't undo the Macintosh HD icon change).

It was not without its struggles, though. I can imagine it'd be fruitless/next to impossible to change the actual folder icons in / (top level).

Do you not read previous posts? In my posts #11 and #14 above, I clearly detail that it is moderately easy to change top level system folder icons. I’ve been doing it for every beta of BS and the final public release. If you change volume icons or folder icons, you need to clear icon cache and rewrite various files on the Preboot volume, as well as creating a new snapshot - or else your changes won’t stick. Big Sur is not buggy in this regard. It’s actually being widely reported as stable and very fast, esp. compared with Catalina. Just follow a proven method and try not to reinvent the wheel. I’ve already spent months fine tuning what works and tried everything that doesn’t. Read what I’ve posted above.

 

[borp99]

How do you install Big Sur with an "unsealed" system volume?

All the info you need is in my post #11 above. Read it very carefully and follow the links for software needed and other forum discussions. Don’t expect anyone to hold your hand and do it for you. You need to digest the hard work that others around the world have put in to getting BS to run as unsealed on supported and, more importantly, unsupported Macs.

 

[KoolAid-Drink]

Do you not read previous posts? In my posts #11 and #14 above, I clearly detail that it is moderately easy to change top level system folder icons. I’ve been doing it for every beta of BS and the final public release. If you change volume icons or folder icons, you need to clear icon cache and rewrite various files on the Preboot volume, as well as creating a new snapshot - or else your changes won’t stick. Big Sur is not buggy in this regard. It’s actually being widely reported as stable and very fast, esp. compared with Catalina. Just follow a proven method and try not to reinvent the wheel. I’ve already spent months fine tuning what works and tried everything that doesn’t. Read what I’ve posted above.

I did. I was simply sharing my experience, thank you your posts were also helpful.

 

[Paulo Freitas Valvator]

Thank you for your support, and I think my doubts can help other users 🤓
I'll recap:

i installed BigSur on a disc just to solve this...

BigSur is my volume name
BigSur - Data is my data volume name
teste01 is my user name

I put Assets.car (with my folders icons) file to the BS desktop.

Boot into Recovery mode in BS and Terminal:

diskutil list
diskutil mount /Volumes/BigSur
mount -uw /Volumes/BigSur

mv /Volumes/BigSur/Users/teste01/Desktop/Assets.car /Volumes/BigSur/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks⁩/⁨IconFoundation.framework⁩/Versions/A/Resources/Assets.car


diskutil mount /Volumes/BigSur ------------( already mounted do i have to mount again?)
mount -uw /Volumes/BigSur
find /Volumes/BigSur - Data/private/var/folders/ -name 'com.apple.dock.iconcache' -exec rm {} \; ------------( show is a directory )
rm -r /Volumes/BigSur - Data/Library/Caches/com.apple.iconservices.store ------------( show permission denied )

​

I stop here..​

diskutil mount /Volumes/BigSur
mount -uw /Volumes/BigSur
kmutil install --volume-root /Volumes/BigSur --update-all --force
/Volumes/BigSur/usr/sbin/kcditto
bless --folder /Volumes/11.0/System/Library/CoreServices --bootefi --create-snapshot

reboot

 

[borp99]

Thank you for your support, and I think my doubts can help other users 🤓
I'll recap:

i installed BigSur on a disc just to solve this...

BigSur is my volume name
BigSur - Data is my data volume name
teste01 is my user name

I put Assets.car (with my folders icons) file to the BS desktop.

Boot into Recovery mode in BS and Terminal:

diskutil list
diskutil mount /Volumes/BigSur
mount -uw /Volumes/BigSur

mv /Volumes/BigSur/Users/teste01/Desktop/Assets.car /Volumes/BigSur/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks⁩/⁨IconFoundation.framework⁩/Versions/A/Resources/Assets.car


diskutil mount /Volumes/BigSur ------------( already mounted do i have to mount again?)
mount -uw /Volumes/BigSur
find /Volumes/BigSur - Data/private/var/folders/ -name 'com.apple.dock.iconcache' -exec rm {} \; ------------( show is a directory )
rm -r /Volumes/BigSur - Data/Library/Caches/com.apple.iconservices.store ------------( show permission denied )

​

I stop here..​

diskutil mount /Volumes/BigSur
mount -uw /Volumes/BigSur
kmutil install --volume-root /Volumes/BigSur --update-all --force
/Volumes/BigSur/usr/sbin/kcditto
bless --folder /Volumes/11.0/System/Library/CoreServices --bootefi --create-snapshot

reboot

I just updated my method [yet again!] to cover these things. I tested out changing my modified Assets.car to a different look and then back again, so have gone through two full processes which worked each time.

So, you don't need SIP or Authenticated-root disabled any more. You don't need to type mount or -uw a second time in Recovery. You are not typing 'BigSur - Data' correctly. You have to add a backslash whenever there is a space in a name, so 'BigSur\ -\ Data'. I think this is why you got two error messages and you stopped. Maybe copy and paste the last section of my updated method into a temp TextEdit file and print it out for reference in Recovery.

You're getting close! Good luck.

Borp99
(in NZ)

 

[Paulo Freitas Valvator]

"BigSur \ - \ Data"
does not give me the way, but only "Data" eg:
find / Volumes /Data/ private / var / folders ...
I'll try...

 

[Paulo Freitas Valvator]

thanks! It worked 👍
I should be typing something wrong, your summary works perfectly, just one more question, is there any way to do copy paste the texts in Recovery? to not have to write everything every time...

 

[borp99]

thanks! It worked 👍
I should be typing something wrong, your summary works perfectly, just one more question, is there any way to do copy paste the texts in Recovery? to not have to write everything every time...

Great - I'm so glad that you've had success and are happy with the result. I hope others will use my method too and not stay stuck with what Apple dictates. The look of an OS does have a psychological element to how we enjoy the time working on our computers. Also, when someone tells me I 'can't' do something, my nature is to find a 'can' way around the situation.

Sadly, there is no way to hold pre-prepared text in the Recovery terminal. The recovery OS is only held in temporary memory, so you can't launch a text file to copy from. You can highlight text already showing in the recovery terminal and copy and paste that to another place. I use this when I'm deleting snapshots. The UUID strings for volumes or snapshots are quite difficult to read and retype, so it's easier to copy them over. The cache clearing text, kmutil, and kcditto text does get set under your fingers if you type them as often as I've been doing over the past 6 months.

Finally, I think you are correct that 'Data' should be sufficient for specifying the user volume in BS (while in the recovery terminal). I've been seeing this come up more often on the larger Macrumors 'BS on Unsupported Macs' forum recently. Maybe it works because the first step is to mount Big Sur 'volumes'. I'll give it a try the next time I need to update my Assets.car file. I've renamed my BigSur system volume as 11.0 and Data as 11.0d - did it from Mojave, as I think you can't alter the Data volume's name from BS - so I find that just as easy to type.

By the way, every time you update Big Sur eg. to 11.1, 11.2 etc, your modified Assets.car file will usually be overwritten by the stock neon blue containing one and the new 'update' snapshot will return your folders back to that look everywhere. You'll need to repeat the process each time to get your custom looking folder back system-wide. You may not have to do the ThemeEngine replacement of the PNGs again though. You most likely can just move the one you made up for 11.0.1 into the 11.1 place. Just check first by opening the updated 11.1 Assets.car file to see if Apple have kept the same arrangement of 'Folder' and 'FolderDark' in the list. Conversely, it doesn't take that much time to just repeat the replacing of the PNGs into the updated file, save it to the Desktop and, as mentioned, go through the move and clear process again in Recovery mode.

 

[Paulo Freitas Valvator]

thanks again, I will use this method to change the other system icons, drag icns file to info not work for system apps, or know any faster method without having to be in Recovery?

 

[borp99]

thanks again, I will use this method to change the other system icons, drag icns file to info not work for system apps, or know any faster method without having to be in Recovery?

You should be able to change the icons of system apps using my method too. The app icon is 'AppIcon.icns' inside the Contents/Resources folder (right click 'Show Package Contents'). Modify the icon using a graphics programme or Preview (if just the colour being altered). As with the 'master' PNG or TIFF for the Assets.car work, the graphic needs a transparent alpha channel around the icon. Also, there are often 4-9 sizes of the icon embedded inside the .icns file, so you need to alter each one. Some graphics programmes will apply your replacement icon or changes to all of the sizes, while others you'll need to change each size icon one at a time. You should be able to drag and drop replacements in some editors, while others may require (delete, then) copy and paste steps. Check the editor's info window and make sure the icons have the same overall perimeter size. The middle-sitting icon graphic(s) could be bigger or smaller than the Apple original though.

Once you have created the replacement AppIcon.icns file, again place it on the desktop (or wherever) and do the 'mv', then icon cache clear, kmutil, kcditto and bless new snapshot in recovery, otherwise you won't see the icon change. You can't do this while running BS normally because the system folder is not mounted as read-write. It's all about Apple's direction in preventing hackers or malware from getting access to the system files (not sure about the ones on the user's Data volume?!). We are removing one layer of defense by installing BS without encryption/sealing, of course - but that's a small price to pay for being able to tinker with the interface.

There is a current dialogue I'm trying to follow around ThemeEngine's original developer. Some of his posters are trying to alter other graphical elements of BS, like the traffic lights and windows borders. The BS ones don't really upset me - not like the bright blue system folders did, so I'm just going to leave the other interface things as-is for now. Anyway, good luck with tinkering with system app icons. The third-party apps should be fine to alter, as they run from the read/write Data volume, as you've obviously worked out.

 

[Paulo Freitas Valvator]

I found a very simple method of copy-paste texts in recovery:

1- put the text online, it can be in an email
2- in Recovery open the Safari before Terminal and the text link, I put an email in gmail.
3- select the text to copy and use the safari menu to copy(I think the mouse doesn't work)
4- use the terminal menu to paste.

 

[borp99]

I found a very simple method of copy-paste texts in recovery:

1- put the text online, it can be in an email
2- in Recovery open the Safari before Terminal and the text link, I put an email in gmail.
3- select the text to copy and use the safari menu to copy(I think the mouse doesn't work)
4- use the terminal menu to paste.

Thanks for the great suggestion. I've placed a tiny dot on my personal website, where only I can open a hidden text page and have stored those long strings of text (for moving the Assets.car file and doing the other icon updates etc). I didn't think that you could have Safari 'and' Terminal open at the same time in Recovery, but you can. I have two monitors, so it's easy to copy and paste the text between my webpage and the terminal. You're a star.

 

[Paulo Freitas Valvator]

Thanks for the great suggestion. I've placed a tiny dot on my personal website, where only I can open a hidden text page and have stored those long strings of text (for moving the Assets.car file and doing the other icon updates etc). I didn't think that you could have Safari 'and' Terminal open at the same time in Recovery, but you can. I have two monitors, so it's easy to copy and paste the text between my webpage and the terminal. You're a star.

Yes, the process is much faster, and saved for future use.
to be quicker to have assets you can use the Icon Glue app, just drag the image file and it automatically creates the assets catalog, then just change with ThemeEngine, many system icons are now also in this format.
👍

 

[JohnDoe12]

@borp99 Thanks a lot for your instructions. Does anyone know if there's a tutorial for changing system icons anywhere? I searched but have not found anything so far.

 

[Mick84]

Is there a way when manually copy pasting icon images to turn off the password typing requirement? I'd like to change the icons but having to type the password after every change is a bit too much typing for me.

 

[Paulo Freitas Valvator]

here is my work in progress with my new icons and folders, to change the icons you can use the
borp99method or this method " ThemeEngine" that works without recovery: https://github.com/jslegendre/ThemeEngine/blob/v3/README.md

 

[emoopo]

Hello short request where can I find the ThemeEngine App V3 that works on BigSur.

 

[allan.nyholm]

@borp99 So, now that I've read your comments above I will give you a free pass to poke me with a stick repeatedly if I haven't gotten this all correct.
This is all related to theming and such.
Is there a possibility that all the rebooting I do when theming Big Sur can be eliminated if I want to see my changes for whatever changes I make to my Finder windows for instance.
I'm asking because you are in the know about all of this.

With older macOS version like with macOS Catalina I could relaunch Finder and or anything else to see my new shining traffic lights. I of course have great success already with following jslegendre's GitHub markdown document.

I have yet to change system icons, but I'm sure that will be just as great as what I'm doing now.

I really would like to be free of rebooting 100 times a day

 

[borp99]

@borp99 So, now that I've read your comments above I will give you a free pass to poke me with a stick repeatedly if I haven't gotten this all correct.
This is all related to theming and such.
Is there a possibility that all the rebooting I do when theming Big Sur can be eliminated if I want to see my changes for whatever changes I make to my Finder windows for instance.
I'm asking because you are in the know about all of this.

With older macOS version like with macOS Catalina I could relaunch Finder and or anything else to see my new shining traffic lights. I of course have great success already with following jslegendre's GitHub markdown document.

I have yet to change system icons, but I'm sure that will be just as great as what I'm doing now.

I really would like to be free of rebooting 100 times a day

Hi Allan,

I found that any changes to the BS system files simply don't show up after a reboot unless you clear the icon cache, if icons are being changed at a system level, and then rebuilding the prelinked kernel files on the Preboot volume, which is where the kmutil and kcditto routines are used. Also, as I haven't easily managed to clear the last snapshot in my setup (well, I did with JackLuke's 'BigSurBaseSystemfix.dmg' over on the 'Big Sur on Unsupported Macs' Macrumors forum - but it was just too much hassle...and I've found that I can live with a snapshot based BS environment (it's extra security anyway)), you need to bless a new snapshot based on the changes you just made in Recovery.

As Paulo suggested, and I've since expanded on - if you have a personal web page, add a secret extra html page with just the Assets.car, clear cache, kmutil, kcditto and bless text strings on it and you can open it with Safari in Recovery and copy/paste them into the Terminal to save all of the boring typing.

I'm sure you don't actually need to reboot 100 times a day. It's the prerogative of aging (wise) men (like us - I'm 61, but was 25 a week ago - what happened to the years inbetween?) to exaggerate for effect.

 

[allan.nyholm]

Hi Allan,

I found that any changes to the BS system files simply don't show up after a reboot unless you clear the icon cache, if icons are being changed at a system level, and then rebuilding the prelinked kernel files on the Preboot volume, which is where the kmutil and kcditto routines are used. Also, as I haven't easily managed to clear the last snapshot in my setup (well, I did with JackLuke's 'BigSurBaseSystemfix.dmg' over on the 'Big Sur on Unsupported Macs' Macrumors forum - but it was just too much hassle...and I've found that I can live with a snapshot based BS environment (it's extra security anyway)), you need to bless a new snapshot based on the changes you just made in Recovery.

As Paulo suggested, and I've since expanded on - if you have a personal web page, add a secret extra html page with just the Assets.car, clear cache, kmutil, kcditto and bless text strings on it and you can open it with Safari in Recovery and copy/paste them into the Terminal to save all of the boring typing.

I'm sure you don't actually need to reboot 100 times a day. It's the prerogative of aging (wise) men (like us - I'm 61, but was 25 a week ago - what happened to the years inbetween?) to exaggerate for effect.

Sure,

Perhaps I did exaggerate the 100 reboots a day, but for theming like I was used to I can't seem to get around all the blessing and Terminal-work(which I don't mind) I need to reboot to see changes.

I'm afraid to say this; I have had Big Sur installed in a VM for the purpose of seeing my changes to my .car files and I might have to go back to that approach just to have some sort of gauge as to how and why my theme looks the way it does.
I could also buy a new Mac for that particular purpose. Because you see, a VM is slow as me on a Sunday morning, fumbling around trying to get to the coffee maker before I stub my toe on some furniture.

Also, I will go look in the thread you mentioned. If only to see what's happening.

The point you mention on not being able to have cleared the last snapshot in your setup, I can tell you that most of the times where I resort to reinstalling Big Sur, or any other macOS version - is because when I attempt to clear my blessed snapshot(due to Disk Utility complaining while First Aid'ing in Recovery Mode) I get a Kernel Panic on next boot. I can't recover from that with what knowledge I currently have.

I really have cornered myself with Big Sur. /Sings "We shall overcome and all that crap"

Thanks for posting.

 

[dumiku]

Next big questions, can then also the icons of the folders also only with so big detour exchange. Because then MacOS Big Sur is a No Go System.

It is clearly stated on Liteicon website that changing the system folder icon won't be possible.

 

[JohnDoe12]

@borp99 What's the method for changing system icons that Paulo is alluding to in his post? I haven't been able to find it yet

 

[DeltaMac]

@borp99 What's the method for changing system icons that Paulo is alluding to in his post? I haven't been able to find it yet

I think the information you want is in posts #11 and 14 on the 1st page of this thread.

 

[Paulo Freitas Valvator]

@borp99 I just need to change the folders glyphs, I can't find...

 

[allan.nyholm]

@Paulo Freitas Valvator I've been trying to locate these too, and by scouring through the various Aqua car and Dark appearance .car files I thought I had a breakthrough because I found and saw what might have the drop shadow on the glyph. It wasn't too obvious to me that - I hadn't paid that much attention to the details of the glyphs, only re-making them in Sketch for fun


I'm certain that the color and style is at least controlled by the Font settings in any of the available .car files.

Your guess is as good as mine, but the style indicated that there's a drop shadow and possibly an inner shadow.

From previous experience with Catalina, it was possible to change the menubar font color and style on fonts on same.

This icon deal is a whole new lane .. and especially Big Sur.

My breakthrough wasn't a breakthrough at all, because I wasn't willing to go through all the rebooting just to test to see if a color or style on any font was the right one. I've read your comments on how to make new icons appear, but I haven't come to actually changing anything like that myself, despite wanting to.

Perhaps IconChamp that the author of cDock and Macforge is working on can help in this regard.

The glyphs themselves I haven't been able to locate either, I have an idea though, that they are within a framework. I hope that wasn't obvious to anyone already looking.