How to create icon sets in OS X

Because I’ll Forget #1023:

Problem
I know how to _USE_ icon sets and set my icons*. My issue is that I want to take a folder of, say, *.PNG files and make the icon reflect the contents. I did some digging, and the solution is pretty simple — AND elegant.

Solution
There is a relatively unknown program, at least it was to me, called “sips.” To take the generic PNG icon and replace it with a small thumbnail of the actual image you simply run sips -i {image.ext} from the command line. Beautiful!

Example

1. Open a shell
2. cd {folder full of icons here}
3. find . -name "*.{ext}" -exec sips -i '{}' \;
4. Wait…
5. Start at the top of this page with how to change icons

Resources

• http://forums.macosxhints.com/

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*opt-cmd-i anything, select source, copy icon, select desc, paste

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