Get Info for icons problem

Now with Get Info of ico files, I still get the flower in the preview section of Get Info, but at the top left where the icon is, there is no longer a flower where there USED to be a flower icon (with SL). Now it just seems to be a default icon which is a small iPhoto image with ICO below it.

That's normal behaviour, so I'm not sure I understand your problem. SL has never done what you say unless you customise that icon. For example, the screenshot below is from SL, a 'get info' on a random .ico file. In the top left you see the icon for Preview, not for the icon, because Preview is the app that is set to open this kind of file.

If you want to change the icon for all your .ico files, you need to change the icon in the 'get info' panel of the app that opens them (i.e., in my example I'd have to change the icon for Preview).

Ahh, OK, I think I've got it. I was half right.

Go to the app that opens .ico (le'ts assume its Preview).

Press 'Get info' on Preview and unlock the permissions padlock at the bottome. Change 'everyone' to 'read and write', click the gear cog and choose 'apply to enclosed items'. Ignore the warning (we'll change it back later).

Next, go back to Preview in the Finder. Hold down 'control' and click on Preview and choose 'Show Package Contents'. Navigate to Resources where you should find two files

ico.icns

icns.icns

Rename these files to

Default.ico.icns

Default.icns.icns

Next copy the .icns file you want to use in that same Resource folder, giving it the name

ico.icns

Right click on it and choose 'duplicate'. For the duplicate name it

icns.icns

For good measure, go to Terminal and type

killall Finder

(if you don't like Terminal, just log out and log back in again). That should do it, like this:

Don't forget to go back to Preview.app and do 'Get Info' to change permissions back to 'Everyone: 'Read Only', applying to enclosed items as before.

🙂

If you are trying to customize specific folders, each with its own icon from a different icon file, you don't need to change the display icon of the icon file. Instead, try the following:

1) Open the .ico file in Preview

2) Within Preview, press Command-A (select all), then Command-C to copy that selection.

3) Get Info on the folder to be customized, click on its current icon at the upper left of the Get Info window, and type Command-V to paste in the copied image.

My guess is that some of your previous applications were setting a custom icon for a thumbnail - the Finder's icon preview does not set a custom icon. The Get Info window method doesn't work with the contents of files, and if there isn't an icon set it just shows a generic file type icon for the document (you can clear the custom icon and see the default one by selecting the icon in Get Info and pressing the delete key).

There are some third party utilities and scripts that can set an icon to the image in files such as jpg, tiff, or png. I also have an AppleScript application that will set an icon for a file or folder in Snow Leopard or Lion - you can download it here.

Sunflower* wrote:

I had no problem using my own icons with SL, but I can't do it with Lion. Is that a Lion thing, or has something gone wrong somewhere?

Further assistance is requested please.

Not a Lion issue. Still does exactly what it has always done on my Macs. Try repairing your permissions using DiskUtiliy.

Good Luck

Pete

Sunflower* wrote:

Oh. Thank you for your advice. I've never done that before. How is it done please?

Applications > Utilities > DiskUtility Open it and in the left sidebar choose your Volume (usuall named MacHardDrive or similar) and down bottom left of window click on Repair Permissions. It may take a good few minutes, but when finished, it will say Permissions Repaired. Then Quit and DiskUtility and restart and see if that helps.

Pete

softwater wrote:

If you want to change the icon for all your .ico files, you need to change the icon in the 'get info' panel of the app that opens them.

Actually, that doesn't appear to work as I thought. I didn't have any luck with red_menace's applescript either.

Like you, I did this many years ago and can't remember exactly how it's done. Probably involves changing some ico.icns file somewhere, but hopefully someone else will come along with an exact procedure (you could also try googling it, which is what I've been doing for the last 10 minutes or so, but didn't find quite the answer I was looking for).

Sorry couldn't be any more help right now. If I get time, I'll have another try later.

My script application doesn't use Get Info at all, it is a stand alone application to set the icon, and prompts you for the file item to set and the image file to set it to. An icon needs to be set in one way or another in order for it to be available in the upper left icon of the Get Info window, otherwise there is just the generic icon for that file type. You may have used an application such as GraphicConverter in your Snow Leopard installation, which can set a custom icon. As you found with your solution, copying an image to the clipboard from an application can also be used.

Yay! Thank you! and thanks to Sunflower* for asking the question. I spent hours trying to figure this out before I came across this posting.