Creating Custom Mac Folder Icons in Freeform

You can use the new Ventura Freeform tool to make quick custom folder icons. Add one of the many available shapes or import your own to have the folder stand out from others. With some extra work you can even color the folder something other than the default blue.

Video Transcript: Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Let me show you how to create custom file and folder icons using Freeform.
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Now if you like creating custom file and folder icons to see in the Finder on your Mac in the past you've had to use Image Editing apps, sometimes you can use Preview or perhaps Keynote or Pages to create them. But now we have a new tool in macOS Ventura and that's to use Freeform. You can do this actually pretty quickly. So, for instance, let's say I want to take this business folder here and just create a custom folder icon with just a shape on it so I can pick it out from all these other folders quickly. 
So, I'm going to select it and then I'm going to use Command i to get info. Then I'm going to select the icon here and then Command C to Copy. So now I've copied the current icon into the clipboard. So now let's go to Freeform. I'm going to create a new board and I'm going to use Command V to paste the folder icon there. Now the idea here is to  customize it. So I'm going to go to Shapes up here and I'm going to search for something that may be appropriate. Business doesn't really turn up anything. Chart, well that turns up some interesting things. Let's use a chart, say, like this. Let's put it there. Now let's resize it, make it maybe a more prominent color. So I can click on it once and click on the little color chip there and change it to a color I want or choose the Color Wheel here and then use the Color Picker to choose something that will standout more. So let's have a nice bold purple there. Get the sizing just right. Get it just where I want in there. Something like that. 
Now there is one other thing I want to do. I want to select the image here. The image of the folder. If I go to Format I notice that Shadow and Round Corners are checked. I want to uncheck both of those. But the image already has a shadow because the folder image of the Finder has a shadow there. Round corners doesn't really come into it because the  rounded corners here would have been part of the invisible part of that graphic. But I'm going to remove it anyway. So now I've got the exact image of the folder from the Finder. I'm going to select that and Shift Select the shape there or just drag and select both. I'm just going to do Command C there to copy. Then I'm going to switch back to the Finder here, go back to this folder, Command i to get the info on that folder there. Select the icon again and Command V to paste in. You can see I've now got that custom icon there. 
I can now go back to Freeform and if I like I can create other ones here. Let me drag with the Option Key held down to make a duplicate of this folder here. I can use some sort of other object here for a new folder. Let's use this tree. I'll put it here. I'll make the tree green like that. Maybe a darker green. If I select both of those, Copy, Return to the Finder, and select something else. Like this folder here. I can Paste in once I've selected the icon here at the top left and you can see how easily now I can kind of have this factory and this area where I've saved all of these folder icons.
Now it gets a little more complex if you don't want to use the default folder image. It would be nice if there was a shape for folder here. But there isn't. There is some file ones. So if you're creating some file icons you can start off with one of these, maybe on of the default ones there, and then once you have that you can click it, change the color to some other color which is really nice. But you can only do that because it is a shape. With this folder here, that's an image you pasted in, and you can't change the color of it. There is nothing in here that will allow you to do that. To change the color of this you would have to paste it first into another app, it could be an imaging editing app, it could be Preview, and then you could desaturate it and color it using coloring tools in those apps and make a different colored folder.
But it would be nice to be able to do that just here in Freeform. You kind of can. I'm going to Option Drag the folder over here. Let's move and zoom in on this. If we put a shape over it, like a rounded rectangle here, then I could set the rounded rectangle to a color and I can make it semi-transparent. But that would only color in the area where the shape is over and any area outside of that. We don't want that. So, instead let's create a shape that fills exactly the folder area. To do that I'm going to go and use that rounded rectangle there and I am going to set it to some other color, like red, and an opacity that is, say, 50% so I can see through it. Now I'm going to drag it so the left edge and the right edge match and the bottom and the top match like that. It's hard because it snaps but if you drag and then after starting to drag you hold the Command Key down you could actually set it to drag to a specific pixel, like this. So I can get it to match the edges exactly. 
Now I'm going to use that green dot there to get the rounded corners to match the rounded corners of the icon. So now all I need to do is to have this nice little curve in here. So go to Format and then Shapes & Lines and make Editable. Now what I want to do is Option Click right at the beginning of that curve to add a new point, and Option Click on the line here, but above the point where the curve just starts. Like that. So now I've got two additional points there. I'm going to Control Click on them and make them sharp. So now I can take this point here and drag it down. I'm also going to select all of these points and drag all of them down to match here. Now all you need to do is correct for this. So I'll go back in here and edit these points. So what I'm going to do here is I've got this little circle point here which allows me to curve this area. I don't want to do that. I want to instead Option Click right in that  same point. So now I've got two sections. This section and this section. I can drag this curve and this curve to get them to basically match the edges there. You can adjust all those points. You end up with something that perfectly covers the folder. By making 50% or more or less opaque you can adjust the color. 
You'll have to deal with the fact that the folder behind it is blue so sometimes you have to emphasize the color a little more. But now I've got it as red so now I can go ahead and further customize this by adding a shape to it. I'll go here and let's add this shape and I'll shrink it down. I'll put it here in the middle. I'll change its color to something else. Let's just make it black like that. Then I'm going to drag and select all three parts: the image, the overlay we've created, and the shape copy. Then here I can select a folder. Select the icon and Command V to Paste. Now I've got a custom colored folder. 
Of course you're not limited to using shapes here. You can get images, images you've created, images from the internet. Paste them in here to cover the folder or the file icon that you create. Or just use a shape all by itself. You don't need to have a folder or file background to it. For instance I can select just this shape here and Copy and then in the Finder I can Paste just that, and that is now my folder icon. 
So lots of fun ways to customize the folder or file icons on your Mac using Freeform. Hope you found this useful. Thanks for watching.

Comments: 5 Responses to “Creating Custom Mac Folder Icons in Freeform”

Juris Ozols

1 year ago

Gary - very useful, thank you! Question: Is it possible to create some kind of “alias” to a specific Freeform board that can be placed on the desktop, so that when it is clicked it opens up that board without having to go through other steps?

Gary Rosenzweig

Kris: You can try to use the same technique I show for Notes here: https://macmost.com/linking-to-notes-and-documents-on-your-mac.html

Jun

Thanks for the great video Gary!
If I copy this folder with customized icon from one Mac to another Mac (let's say via a flash drive etc.), will it appear same on another Mac too?
(In other words, info related to how the folder is displayed resides in OS(in this case another Mac may display this folder in default way) or is it part of folder metadata etc.(in this case, the info will go together with it wherever it goes and it will display as customized everywhere)?

Jun: Not sure. Try it. Might depend on the format of the Flash drive, so experiment.

Tommy

Did you really say quickly and easily "change the color of a folder" It took 20 steps to change the color. Very "Windows Like"

Comments Closed.

Creating Custom Mac Folder Icons in Freeform

Comments: 5 Responses to “Creating Custom Mac Folder Icons in Freeform”

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