Which colorsync profile is which?

Many of them aren't display (monitor) profiles at all. They're just RGB files that you could use as a monitor profile, if you want. Which is not at all a good idea since only the profile pulled from the monitor is at least a reasonably close profile to the color the monitor panel displays.

When viewing the Displays panel in the System Profiler, the items above the line are the monitor profiles. Those particular profiles are in the /Library/ColorSync/Profiles/Displays/ folder. Typically, there's only one, and that's the one pulled from the monitor's firmware. i.e., a default profile provided by the manufacturer for that display. If there's more than one, sometimes the OS will mistakenly pull duplicates of the same profile, or you've created your own via the Calibrate… button.

Bear in mind that the names of the profiles you see in the System Preferences are the internal names of a profile. While the file name tends to be exactly the same, it won't always be. The file name could be called monitorRGB.icc, but can show up in the Displays panel as DellRGB, or whatever name they give it internally.

The duplicates are there because there are duplicates on the system. The System folder has these default profiles:

AdobeRGB1998.icc

Generic CMYK Profile.icc

Generic Gray Gamma 2.2 Profile.icc

Generic Gray Profile.icc

Generic Lab Profile.icc

Generic RGB Profile.icc

Generic XYZ Profile.icc

sRGB Profile.icc

On most systems, you'll find duplicates of AdobeRGB and sRGB in the root /Library/ColorSync/Profiles/ folder. They may have different creation dates, but they are generally identical. The Adobe apps install yet more duplicates. They will add two aliases to the /Library/ColorSync/Profiles/ folder; Profiles and Recommended, which point to folders within the /Library/Application Support/Adobe/ folder.

So, if you want to get rid of duplicates of AdobeRGB, sRGB, ColorMatch RGB, and some others, you'll have to root around for them. You only need one of each.

Important: Do not remove any of the items listed above from the System folder. If you want only one instance of AdobeRGB on your Mac, remove the duplicates from the other locations you find it in. Same with sRGB. Never remove the System folder copies.

nealt2 wrote:

So how can I match up the items? In particular if I pick a profile in Display Preferences how do I know which Profile file is being used?

I know we do not want to touch the profiles in the System folder library

When you pick a profile in Display Preferences, click the Open Profile button to the right. That will open it in ColorSync Utility, where you will learn two things.

One, in the data window it opens up for the profile, the title bar will show you the actual file name (Displays pref only shows the ASCII name shown in ColorSync Utility).

Two, that title bar works like a title bar in a Finder window, which means, if you Command-click it, you will see the entire file path to the folder where that file is stored. That way you can know which folder each profile lives in.

nealt2 wrote:

Yes. That works to show which profile is being used. So how do you get rid of the duplicate names in Display Preferences? Is there a way to reset this?

If you know which folder you don't want to delete profiles from, you can use the above technique to figure out which copies are in folders you can delete from, and then delete those unwanted copies.

If you have 3 copies with the same profile name, use "Open Profile" to figure out which ones live where, then delete the ones you don't want. You might have to close and reopen the Displays preferences to update the list of profiles.

The reason you see 3 copies of a profile is because their internal ASCII description is the same even though the real filenames (which are not shown in Displays) are different.