Set custom icon for a folder via AppleScript?

AppleScript
#1

Is it possible to set an icon for a folder using AppleScript only? I have a script that replaces the default Dropbox folder icon with a darker version that I made to match the darker icons that I use as default icons. The script uses a 64-bit build that I made of SetFileIcon from Hamsoft:

http://www.hamsoftengineering.com/codeSharing/SetFileIcon/SetFileIcon.html

But I would prefer to use pure AppleScript if possible. A web search produced no results, but I suspect that the experts here will know better. Many thanks for any help.

Set custom icon for desktop alias of folder?
#2

Assuming your icon is an icns file:

use framework "Foundation"
use framework "AppKit"
use scripting additions

set sourcePath to "/Users/myName/Desktop/myFile.icns"
set destPath to "/Users/myName/Desktop/myFolder/"
set imageData to (current application's NSImage's alloc()'s initWithContentsOfFile:sourcePath)
(current application's NSWorkspace's sharedWorkspace()'s setIcon:imageData forFile:destPath options:2)

:slight_smile:

1 Like
#3

That is exactly what I hoped to learn, but could never have figured out by myself. Thank you.

#4

This one have worked fine for me before (thanks @emendelson). But with MacOS 12 Monterey it stopped working :slightly_frowning_face:.
There is no error message. The icon for a folder just doesn’t change when running the exactly same script for the same folder as I did with Big Sur and earlier.

#5

The script @ionah posted works here under 12.0.1. The image file can be any known image format (.jpg, .tif, etc).

#6

My mistake. It didn’t work for me because the png to be used were missing (due to a preceding clean MacOS install).
This script does’t throw an error if the image file is missing, so I didn’t think in that direction. I’ll add that to my copy.
Thanks.

#7

I made it so I could call the applescript with variables for iconfile and target file but I get an error -1763? Anyone know how to get rid of that?

osascript: couldn't save changes to script /Users/jwsmite/Desktop/dot_dmg_maker/iconscript.applescript: error -1763.

osascript myscript.scpt myicon.icns targetfolder/

myscript.scpt

use framework "Foundation"
use framework "AppKit"
use scripting additions
on run argv
	set sourcePath to (item 1 of argv)
	set destPath to (item 2 of argv)
	set imageData to (current application's NSImage's alloc()'s initWithContentsOfFile:sourcePath)
	(current application's NSWorkspace's sharedWorkspace()'s setIcon:imageData forFile:destPath options:2)
end run

It does what it’s meant to I just don’t know why I get this error print out too

#8

Hello @jwsmite

looking at one of the beautiful Error-Code Lists found here you’ll get the information:

–2763 No result was returned for some argument of this expression.

I think that’s the Key here…

Greetings from Germany

Tobias