How do I restore the default folder icon?

I build web sites on a Mac and after the recent upgrade to Mavericks, the icon for all of my web template folders have changed from the standard Mac folder icon to the Parallels icon. I can change it using Get Info, but this has to be done one folder at a time and is unnecessarily tedious.

Has anyone else encountered this, and more importantly does anyone know how to reset the default to display the standard blue Mac folder icon?

Here is what it looks like right now:

enter image description here


  1. Get Info on the folder.
  2. Click the icon on the top-left of the window.
  3. Press X or Backspace

Alternatively, cd into the directory and run

rm Icon$'\r'

To delete the icon from multiple folders at the same time, run the following command:

find ~/Desktop -name Icon$'\r' -delete

Replace ~/Desktop with the containing folder of the folders that you wish to remove the icons from.


Go to /System/Library/CoreServices/CoreTypes.bundle/Contents/Resources/ this is where the resources are. the icon for generic folder is called "GenericFolderIcon.icns". What image is it in your system/ Is it the image of the Parallels icon? By default it should be the blue folder icon. Source http://yukiyamashina.github.io/blog/2014/10/19/how-to-change-the-color-of-default-folder-icons-in-OS-X-Yosemite/

or you can try liteIcon