The ridiculous difficulty of getting aliased folders to update icons

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think I’ve got it down but not in a form that I could recommend anyone else using. Ever. Here are the steps that seem to work after massive googlage.

1. Update original (non-alias) icon as desired.

2. Delete aliases (Yes doctor, kill the patient)

3. Trash cache.

sudo /usr/bin/find /private/var/folders/ -name com.apple.dock.iconcache -exec rm {} \;
sudo /usr/bin/find /private/var/folders/ -name com.apple.iconservices -exec rm -rf {} \;
cd /Library/Caches/; sudo rm -rf com.apple.iconservices.store

4. Log out and back in or reboot computer. (No, really.)

5. Recreate the aliases or symbolic links.

For anyone who wants a good laugh, search the web for OS X alias icons won’t update.

One Comment

  • Weird… I followed your steps and instead of logging out, I tried stuff like “sudo launchctl unload /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.iconservices.iconservicesd.plist” and relaunching Finder, but neither refreshed the icons.