Q: Where have my MS icons gone in Yosemite?

thanks a lot. it worked and solved my issue too.

Right-click (or 2-finger touch pad) on desktop.

Click Clean Up.

That worked for me. Icons ended up sorted in the upper right, instead of my original layout on the lower left, but this is easy to fix (now that I can see my icons again).

Installed Yosemite just a couple days ago. The problem started when I used a new projector, and couldn't find familiar OS X display settings to handle it. Anyway the problem is over for me.

Sadly, that didn't fix the generic icons in my case. And yes, I did get each and every file including hidden files.

Same problem(s) here, all of the mentioned solutions don't work or work only temporary. Hope Apple will fix this soon. The problem seems to be concentrating around the iconservices.

A thing I noticed was that if I extract an archive with unrarx that the icons are created and visible but when I extract them manually (command-line) the icons appear blank. 

I just followed bogdanbat's cache cleaning instructions and my icons are restored.

FYI, I spent about 2 1/2 hours in chats with Apple Tech reps this afternoon and the problem was not resolved. They were knowledgeable and evidently experienced, but they did not suggest the cache cleaning. I will get back with them tomorrow to report that I solved my issue by using a procedure suggested in the Apple community.

Unless, of course I wake up and the icons have disappeared again.

same issue after a clean install - no solution on the internet !!!

I have a MacBook Pro 15 2011 and when I went form Lion to Mavericks, I would constantly get Office 2011 crashes no matter what application I ran from Office for Mac 2011. I am currently running Mavericks and I am on the 14.4.6 release for Office for Mac 2011. I am waiting for a while to upgrade to Yosemite, while i appreciate free like the next guy, I use all of office to include outlook and I am not interested in reinstalling everything and waiting six months for a fix.

signed,

patiently waiting

More specifically, just deleting /Library/Caches/com.apple.iconservices.store does the job. You will need to enter your administrator password for this. Follow up with a reboot.

This worked for me! Thank you!

I was about to clear all my Cache folders as suggested by another poster when I saw your post about just deleting /Library/Caches/com.apple.iconservices.store.

Hopefully this little annoyance won't come back.

Sadly this doesn't work for me , because it won't let me delete.

Thank you, your solution worked for me

"More specifically, just deleting /Library/Caches/com.apple.iconservices.store does the job. You will need to enter your administrator password for this. Follow up with a reboot."

I don't have that option I have a blue folder

with a red circle a with  minus sigh and get this.

The folder “com.apple.iconservices.store” can’t be opened because you don’t have permission to see its contents.

That is the folder that you need to delete, right click and move to trash, it will ask for your admin password. Once deleted reboot

Still doesn't work .

Still doesn't delete, or still doesn't reinstate the icons, if it is the later you need to try some of the other solutions earlier in the thread