macOS Big Sur - Where is the icon file (.icns) for System Preferences.app?
On macOS Big Sur, I believe this is the location for the Sys Prefs app: /System/Applications/System Preferences.app
, but I cannot find a .icns icon file for the app anywhere in this directory. So where is the icon file for Sys Prefs app?
Command I use to find .icns file in the current directory (fd
can be installed with brew
):
fd -e icns
The System Preferences icon...
In macOS Catalina the System Preferences icon, PrefApp.icns, is located at:
/System/Applications/System Preferences.app/Contents/Resources/PrefApp.icns
However, in macOS Big Sur it is now included in its Assets.car file:
/System/Applications/System Preferences.app/Contents/Resources/Assets.car
In Finder, you can right-click on the application bundle and select Show Package Contents to navigate to these files, or copy them using Terminal.
The image below is a third-party utility called Asset Catalog Tinkerer, to which I have no affiliation. You can use it to view the contents and drag and drop out of it the image you want.
Go to /System/Applications/
, right click System Preferences, click Get info
, and select the icon at the top. Press Command+C
, then open preview and press Command+N
to make a new file from your clipboard. Now save the file as an icns
.