MacOS – Mysterious OS X File Extension (bug?)

findericonmacosplistxcode

I know that OS X uses the Launch Services.framework to manage the file-extensions. But the icons which belong to the file-extension are part of the Info.plist in the package contents of the 'default-opening-application' of that specific file-extension.

My 'buggy' file-extension is *.cpp used by Xcode as default. Normally it should use the icon given in /applications/xcode/contens/ressources/XXX.icns.

But it doesn't! It's using another cpp icon, which i couldn't find in my whole system – in the Xcode app neither.

After I changed the XXX.icns mentioned above with a custom .icns file and cleared my Icon cache, logged out and restarted my mac:

For roundabout 2 seconds I could see my custom .icns file as the standard icon for the file-extension cpp. This is actually what I want to achieve permanently!

But after a few seconds the icon changes by magic into the other cpp icon, which I can't find on my mac. What is wrong with my Mac.

Little Conclusion:

1 icon that is not to find in any lib or app
1 icon that is default in Xcode for example
1 icon that I want to use for an extension

The (1) icon is shown. But it shouldn't. It should show the (3) if I did everything right, otherwise it needs to show (2).

(1) is the icon shown in the finder (2) is the icon shown in the inspector:

Icon 1

Here is the icons I want to use:

Icons to be used

Best Answer

Turn off 'Show icon preview' (in german: Symbolvorschau einblenden) in the view options of the specific folder or all folders and you will probably see your custom icon.

If you want to apply this to all folders click the “Use as Defaults” button.

enter image description here

Related Solutions

MacOS – Change Mac OS X Finder sidebar icons

This isn't an answer but it does add some information. The value associated with the com.apple.LSSharedFileList.TemplateSystemSelector key, 1935819875, is a decimal representation of the file type. In hex, it is 0x73624463, which are the ascii letters 'sbDc'. This file type is described in /System/Library/CoreServices/CoreTypes.bundle/Contents/Info.plist. This is a binary plist that you can convert to xml using plutil -convert xml1 -o Info.plist.xml Info.plist. Looking in the Info.plist.xml file, you can see a dictionary at the top level. Inside this there is a key "CFBundleDocumentTypes" and an array of dictionaries as its value. In this array is a dictionary that contains the following:

<dict>
    <key>CFBundleTypeIconFile</key>
    <string>SidebarDocumentsFolder.icns</string>
    <key>CFBundleTypeName</key>
    <string>Sidebar Documents Folder Icon</string>
    <key>CFBundleTypeOSTypes</key>
    <array>
        <string>sbDc</string>
    </array>
    <key>CFBundleTypeRole</key>
    <string>None</string>
    <key>LSTypeIsPackage</key>
    <false/>
    <key>NSPersistentStoreTypeKey</key>
    <string>Binary</string>
</dict>

An interesting key/value pair in this dictionary is CFBundleTypeIconFile: SidebarDocumentsFolder.icns. This file can be found at /System/Library/CoreServices/CoreTypes.bundle/Contents/Resources/SidebarDocumentsFolder.icns and it contains the icons used for document folders.

I would think that changing the com.apple.LSSharedFileList.TemplateSystemSelector value to a different value, or updating the dictionary for 'sbDc' to refer to a different icns file would get you on your way to having custom icons.

MacOS – Yet Another Custom Sidebar Icon Question (System Info.plist Question)

If you are simply trying to change the default icon to something else, here is an answer I provided for a previous post. I have used this to customize several icons in the Finder's sidebar.

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