I recently had the need to programmatically add an icon to a folder in OS X, with the source being a PNG image file. This arose in the context of setting up an app installer, which needed to set custom Finder icons on several folders. Another context in which a programmatic solution would be useful would be in a running desktop application, where new folders needing custom icons might be created (or their icons be modified for some reason).

Doing this programmatically should be trivially easy, but there are problems with solutions that are commonly provided in answer to this need. This post discusses some of those solutions and their shortcomings, and presents a usable workaround or two. It’s also a plea (or two) for help…

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