Where are the icons stored?

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Level 6

13,090 points

Where are the icons stored?

I don't see a forum for this question, so I ask it here.
Is there a single folder or file somewhere that contains all the various icons?
Specifically, I started out looking for that @-sign on the spring next to the trashbin - wondering if I ever lost it where to find it. Then I got a bit more curious about the icons.
Is there a system folder or some common storage area for all these icons?
If so, where is it?
Thanks

Dual G5(Leopard), MacBookPro 15(Leopard), MacBookPro3,1 17 Core2Duo, Mac OS X (10.5.1), BC1.4 Vista Ultimate 64-bit on MBP/17"

Posted on Nov 20, 2007 6:23 PM

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Answer 1

Niel

Community+ 2025

Level 10

741,299 points

Nov 20, 2007 7:52 PM in response to nerowolfe

To see the Dock icons other than applications, choose Go to Folder from the Finder's Go menu and enter /System/Library/CoreServices/Dock.app/Contents/Resources/ and look at the files inside.

(26136)

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Answer 2

j.v.

Level 5

4,155 points

Nov 20, 2007 10:28 PM in response to nerowolfe

Actual application icons can be found via Terminal, e.g.,

/Applications/Mail.app/Contents/Resources/app.icns

is Mail's icon.

Other icons used within an application's GUI will reside in the same location, generally speaking, i.e., path/appName.app/Contents/Resources, with file extension .icns. They are not normally viewable unless you are in Terminal and doing a "ls" command.

Some things like folders where you have cut-&-paste a new image into the Info window will show up in that folder's directory as

Icon^M

Don't know about default document types like .docs and .ppts for example

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Answer 3

Nov 21, 2007 3:41 AM in response to j.v.

Don't know about default document types like .docs and .ppts for example

The icons here are allocated by the Finder from the type or the extension. If, for example, you create a Textedit .txt file and save it, then change the extension to (for example) .cwk (assuming you have Appleworks) then (after a warning) the icon will change to the Appleworks one.

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Answer 4

red_menace

Level 6

17,066 points

Nov 21, 2007 4:00 PM in response to nerowolfe

A lot of the generic system icons, including that spring thingy, are in the /Contents/Resources folder of the /System/Library/CoreServices/CoreTypes.bundle package (to view the contents of a package, right-click on it and select Show Package Contents from the contextual menu). Icons specific to an application can be found inside the application package.

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Answer 5

Feb 5, 2008 3:23 PM in response to red_menace

Hi everybody, I just joined the forums and it looks like I'm joining this discussion very late, so if this topic is dead I'll post it elsewhere.

red_menace, I went to:
/System/Library/CoreServices/CoreTypes.bundle/Contents/Resources
And was able to see all the icons stored therein. What I was not able to do was control-click the icon I wanted to *Get Info* and copy the image so I can use it as another file's icon like I used to do in older versions of OS X.

I'm running the new OS X, 10.5 Leopard, and all I see when I click *Get Info* is the generic .icns file icon instead of the icon's image itself.

Thanks for the help.

Ev

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Answer 6

j.v.

Level 5

4,155 points

Feb 5, 2008 4:37 PM in response to koesherbacon

Can you open and view it with Graphic Converter or other graphics program? If so, try copying the image in Graphic Converter, then do the "Get Info and paste on top of the default icon" trick. This works with OS 10.4.10 using GraphicConverter v5.9.5; I just substituted a TextEdit document's default icon with an image that I copied from a .gif document that I opened using Graphic Converter application.

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