Restoring finder icon

I have moved certain sections (downloads, music, pictures) of my user directory from my SSD to my HDD via symlinks. I have successfully changed over the image of the folder which can be seen in the finder.

After removing the original folder the item is also removed from the sidebar, after creating the symlink I have added the folder back to the sidebar but have noticed that the default icons for such folders is no longer present and simply presented using a blank blue folder.

How can I get the original icons displayed in the sidebar?

Solution 1:

Goto your Home Folder > Library > Preferences and delete the files:

com.apple.finder.plist    
com.apple.sidebarlists.plist

If you can't find the files use this method: from the Finder menu bar, select Go > Go to Folder and copy the following line into the text box that opens:

~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist

Then, restart, or log out and in again.

Edit

Select Go > Go to Folder and copy the following line into the text box that opens:

/System/Library/CoreServices/CoreTypes.bundle/Contents/Resources/

Here is where you will find all the sidebar icons -

Now you will have to manually change the icons for the respective folders by using Get Info on the folder that is in your sidebar and by dragging and dropping the icns file onto on the Inspector panel.

Solution 2:

This is a lot easier than my comment, so I thought it was worthy of answer status:

• go to /System/Library/CoreServices/CoreTypes.bundle/Contents/Resources

• there you will find:

  ApplicationsFolderIcon.icns* DesktopFolderIcon.icns DocumentsFolderIcon.icns DownloadsFolderIcon.icns LibraryFolderIcon.icns MoviesFolderIcon.icns MusicFolderIcon.icns PicturesIcon.icns PublicFolderIcon.icns SitesFolderIcon.icns*

• open each one of these in Preview.app.

• click the disclosure triangle so that you are only viewing ONE version (not all the sizes) in the sidebar of Preview. ( Don't worry, the other ones are underneath)
• select the now only visible image in the sidebar (aka the Drawer inside applications)
• copy
• go to your Home folder and and select the folder who's original icon you just copied
• Get Info by pressing ⌘-i
• select the folder's normal un-decalled icon and paste
• repeat for each folder.

* some people have an Applications folder in their Home folder, some do not.
* some have a Sites folder, some do not. Whatever is there will reflect your current OS, but
* will probably still have both of those for Legacy compatibility.

To Verify you have done this correctly, switch to Column View in your home folder, select one of the special folders, make the preview column and the window very large. If it's not pixelated, you'll be fine.