Hi,
Recently, I started seeing a file "Icon?" in all directories of my MacBook. I have used the below command to delete this multiple times. However, it keeps appearing again, and again.
Does anyone know anything about this? How do we delete these permanently?
find ~/Documents -type f -name 'Icon?' -print -delete
MacBook Pro (M1, 2020)
As you probably determined already, macOS uses an "Icon?" folder to hold data for custom folder icons created by the user, and as I wrote it should be hidden by macOS. You can confirm that for yourself by creating a custom icon and then using the key chord to make it visible.
Change icons for files or folders on Mac - Apple Support
Thank you for confirming Google Drive as the likely cause. I surmise Google is using (arguably, misusing) that feature to contain a status flag indicating folders that need to be backed up. Perhaps it contains metadata recording when it was last backed up, etc. You would need to contact Google to find out if there is anything you can do about it but if I am correct in this assumption it's probably a bug only they can fix.
If you are seeking alternatives to Google Drive of course there are many. I use iCloud. I don't use Google.
Am I to understand you can delete these folders, but they keep reappearing on their own?
Something you installed is causing that to occur. What that something is only you can know, but if you don't know where to start my suspicion is that they are being generated by some non-Apple file synchronization system, possibly Google Drive, or Dropbox, but there are other services that can be responsible.
If any of that sounds familiar perhaps it will lead you to some additional troubleshooting you can perform on your own, but if you need help please write back.
I can put a question mark on a file or folder using the following syntax that adds a Windows Carriage Return to the file or folder name:
mkdir $(perl -pe 's/\R/\015\012/' <<<"Icon")
Result:
You can remove that trailing Carriage Return character by substituting control-v control-m for the carriage return character.
mv "Icon^v^M" Icon
That file is normally hidden. To hide it use the key chord
⌘ ⇧ .
(command shift period)
Hi @John I am using Google Drive as backing up my data. This all makes sense now. When I think about this, I started noticing this behaviour after Google Drive installation.
Anything I can do in this case?
Do you mean on the Desktop, in Finder or where? You can select, within a specified group, what you choose to see in Finder and on the Desktop.
I am talking about this file being visible everywhere when I use terminal, however it doesn't show up in "Finder" which looks like an expected behaviour. This is very annoying one.
How can i use this command to permanently hide these files? So, they do not show up at all.
FIle "Icon?" are everywhere in my MacBook directories
