Unable to obtain the same file icons as displayed in Finder for certain file types

I am working on a macOS application, and I need to obtain the same file icons as displayed in Finder for various file types such as PDF, DOC, and others. I have tried using the following Swift code snippet:

let icon = NSWorkspace.shared.icon(forFile: path)

Unfortunately, this approach doesn't seem to work as expected for specific file types, like PDF and Word documents. Instead of obtaining the correct icons as displayed in Finder, I get a default white icon for these files.

I have tried several alternative solutions, but none have yielded the desired results. I would appreciate any suggestions or guidance on how to obtain the correct file icons for these file types, consistent with what is displayed in Finder.

First image (what I got): This is the file icon I obtained using the provided code. Notice that it is different from the one displayed in Finder, as it shows a default white icon instead of the expected file type icon.

Second image (what Finder displays): This is the icon for the corresponding file as displayed in Finder. This is the icon we want to obtain through our code.

Of course, I saved the obtained icon as a file using the following code. I'm not sure if this is related to the issue or not:

if let iconDataResized = icon.tiffRepresentation {
  if let resizedImageData = NSBitmapImageRep(data: iconDataResized)?.representation(using: .png, properties: [:]) {
    let iconFileURL = FileManager.default.temporaryDirectory.appendingPathComponent("test.icns")
    try? FileManager.default.createDirectory(at: iconFileURL, withIntermediateDirectories: true, attributes: nil)
    try? resizedImageData.write(to: URL(fileURLWithPath: iconFileURL.path), options: .atomic)
    }
}

I have also tried this approach: let icon = NSWorkspace.shared.icon(forFileType: url.pathExtension) but the result is the same as before.

Thank you in advance for your help.

Up vote post of parcool Down vote post of parcool
644 views
Posted by
parcool
Reply
Add a Comment

Replies

I’m confused. The second image is for a different file (test.pdf vs test.icns). And your code snippet shows you writing PNG data to an .icns file.

Share and Enjoy
—
Quinn “The Eskimo!” @ Developer Technical Support @ Apple
let myEmail = "eskimo" + "1" + "@" + "apple.com"

Posted by
eskimo
Up vote reply of eskimo Down vote reply of eskimo

  • Thank you for your reply. test.icns is the icon with the .icns extension in png format that I obtained and stored from the code: let icon = NSWorkspace.shared.icon(forFile: path).The 'path' parameter in the code let icon = NSWorkspace.shared.icon(forFile: path) is the path to that test.pdf. As for test.pdf image(second image), it has nothing to do with my code; it is the icon displayed by macOS Finder. I merely took a screenshot of it, which was my expectation.

    —
    parcool
Add a Comment