Catalina - Change SSD Icon

Something you can try in the meantime with Catalina is to reinstall the OS. Or, since the Combo updates replace a large portion of the OS, you could also try that.

https://support.apple.com/kb/DL2052?locale=en_US

Regardless of which you try, make sure to have a full, restorable backup on hand first.

In order for it to work, I believe the image must be a Mac icon. I use this simple app from the App Store.

Image2Icon

It does have some in-app purchases, but you can always use it for free when you're simply translating an image type (.jpg, .tif, .png) to an .ico file.

Once you have your JPEG converted to a proper Mac icon, you'll be able to paste it into the top left corner of the drive's info details.

Small detail. Since it's currently a JPEG, that white space would normally still be there when it's an .ico image. But, Image2Icon has a button just for that:

Click that, and it automatically finds the first color on the outside edge. It then makes that color transparent.

From there, click the Export button and choose ICNS. Now you can drop it into Get Info.

Bootable drives usually require you to enter your admin password before it will allow the new icon to be placed.

I'm in Big Sur at the moment, and it wouldn't let me place the icon into a Catalina partition's info. Not even if I told it to ignore permissions on the volume. And the really odd part of that is if I'm in Catalina, the drive already has a custom icon that doesn't appear in Big Sur. Haven't taken the time to figure how to assign one in Big Sur.

Hmm, after doing a bit of testing just now I'm guessing (and this is strictly a guess) that a recent security update to Catalina screwed something up.

Normally, all you need to do to remove a custom icon is highlight it in Get Info and press the Delete/Backspace key. This works instantly on any non-startup drive, but not for the Catalina drive while I'm booted to it.

I tried unlocking Get Info. No help. I tried adding myself (admin) to the list of permissions. The OS said I'm not allowed to do that. Pasting in a new icon in Catalina requires me to enter my admin password before it will perform such a simple, completely benign operation. Big Sur lets me do it without question.

While Catalina does allow me to paste/replace one icon over another, I still can't remove any custom icon back down to the system default. No message, nothing. Just the alert sound I have assigned in the System Preferences. This is no issue at all in Big Sur. I can paste and remove at will, as you're supposed to be able to. It's just an icon fer cryin' out loud.

That all said, the icon I pasted into Catalina's drive (while booted to it) did work as expected. It was placed and immediately appeared on the desktop.

Wish I could be more help, but I can't determine why it's not working on your end. Mostly because I can't replicate the issue here to work on it.

John, I understand your issue. I will try to help. I have had the same issue. As near as I can tell, in order to change the icon it was (for me) necessary to actually restart my compute from the external drive, which does have an operating system on it. Then I followed the standard process to paste the new icon. When I restarted the computer from my other drive I had to repeat the process, then it took. If you don't have an OS on the external drive, I am not sure what will work. Since Catalina, this has been very difficult to do.

Not drag. You do a Get Info on both the Catalina drive's icon, and the icon you just created. Then, highlight the new icon in the top left of its Get Info box and press Command+C. Move over to the Get Info dialogue box of the Catalina drive. Highlight its top left icon and press Command+V.

Catalina isn't as heavily protected as Big Sur. But yes, that happens at times. If you restart the Mac, the icon you pasted in will likely appear.

I have an external SSD split into four partitions. Most of the time Catalina shows the four custom icons I've given them when the volumes mount. But every so often, one or two of them (usually one) will show the generic gold icon you're currently seeing. No rhyme or reason as to when it happens.

Not sure if custom icons are part of the user cache. But it's easy to find out if clearing them will fix it.

Restart and immediately hold down the Command+Shift keys. Keep holding them until the OS asks for your admin password. This screen will always come up in a Safe Mode startup even if you normally have your account set to login automatically.

Once at the desktop, restart normally.

Among a few other things, booting into Safe Mode clears the cache data for the account you log into. If the cache was causing the problem, the icon may now appear.

Wish I could say why it's not working for you. I used Image2Icon to make an icon out of the image you posted. I had no trouble assigning the ICNS icon to a drive.

Just to see if it's something weird with your normal user account, create a new test account. Login to that and try applying the icon from there.

That's bizarre. You shouldn't have had to make it a non-bootable drive in order to put in your own icon. But as I wrote above, Catalina has always made a very simple task much harder than it should be.

Glad you figured it out. 🙂