Copy Finder icons in macOS’s Preview app simply.
You need to use the macOS Finder’s Copy command to repeat and paste recordsdata. However here is the way to use the identical command to repeat file icons into Preview.
You have in all probability used the macOS Finder’s popup contextual menu to Copy and paste recordsdata within the Finder from one location to a different within the filesystem.
To take action, you choose a file or recordsdata first within the Finder, then Management-click (or right-click) the gadgets to see the Finder’s popup contextual menu:
Choose an merchandise, Management-click, then choose “Copy” from the contextual menu.
Normally, you’d then use the Paste Merchandise(s) command from the popup menu to make a replica for the recordsdata in another folder or drive in your system.
However in case you simply need to make an picture of the copied file’s icon and never the file itself, you are able to do that too. All by pasting the merchandise into macOS’s Preview app.
Pasting into Preview
To take action, Copy an merchandise within the Finder from the contextual menu simply as you’ll in case you had been going to Paste Merchandise, however as a substitute of choosing Paste Merchandise, open the Preview app and choose File->New from Clipboard.
If the merchandise you copied within the Finder was an app, or a recognized, built-in file sort for which macOS has a system icon, you willl get a brand new full-size icon picture full with alpha in a brand new window in Preview. You may then save the picture as a file or copy it to a different app.
Copied Finder icons in Preview for PDF, an alias to a textual content file, and a picture for an app.
For some file sorts (comparable to PDF and different paperwork) doing this does not create a file icon, however a whole new copy of the doc itself.
For PDF recordsdata in order for you the generic PDF icon and never a replica of the file itself, you may first must do a File->Get Information, choose the icon within the Get Information window, press Command-C in your keyboard, after which do a File->New from Clipboard in Preview.
This technique additionally works for many Finder alias recordsdata – providing you with the generic icon picture of the factor the alias factors to.
Preview makes giant, clear, good photographs from the copies and it is faster and simpler to make icon photographs this manner than to attempt to copy an app’s .icns file from its bundle, or screenshot a file after which edit in a picture modifying app.
In macOS Sonoma, Preview can now additionally save the photographs as HEIF recordsdata.