"Icon?" document appearing in folder

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Level 1

4 points

"Icon?" document appearing in folder

I think everyone is familiar with pasting an image into a folder's "Get Info" window in order to customize a folder's appearance.

When I do this on a folder on my imac, all is well, but once I copy it over to an external drive, an additional document called "Icon?" is in the folder. If I delete this doc, the custom folder image is also gone. Any idea how to hide this doc? I've tried command+shift+. and this didn't work. Thanks for your time. I have a late 2015 27-inch iMac w/ Big Sur version 11.5.1 External Drives are formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled).

Posted on Aug 8, 2021 2:15 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

D.I. Johnson

Level 7

24,251 points

Aug 8, 2021 8:14 AM in response to Buzz-On

Navigate to the folder where this "Icon?" file is located.

Press shift-command-period to show hidden files.

Rename the the file with a period ( . ) as the first character ".Icon?"

Confirm the change when prompted.

Press shift-command-period again to hide hidden files.

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Answer 2

Old Toad

Level 10

210,651 points

Sep 13, 2021 1:24 PM in response to Buzz-On

I can't duplicate the icon change when copying files from a OS Extended (journaled) drive to my APFS drive. Try the the following: boot into Safe Mode according to Start up your Mac in safe mode - Apple Support and see if the problem persists. Reboot normally and check again.

NOTE: Safe Mode boot can take up to 10 minutes as it's doing the following;

• Verifies your startup disk and attempts to repair directory issues, if needed

• Loads only required kernel extensions (prevents 3rd party kernel/extensions from loading)

• Prevents Startup Items and Login Items from opening automatically

• Disables user-installed fonts

• Deletes font caches, kernel cache, and other system cache files

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Answer 3

Buzz-On Author

Level 1

4 points

Sep 13, 2021 11:58 AM in response to D.I. Johnson

Thanks so much. This did make the "Icon?" file or document invisible in the folder, but it also defaulted the folder's icon back to the normal blue folder image. I was hoping to keep the custom image I had pasted into the "Get Info" panel. Funny thing is, the problem only occurs if I move folders from my APFS iMac to my Mac OS Journaled Extended external drive. Only then do these "Icon?" documents appear. Does that shed any more light on it? Thanks so much, again.

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"Icon?" document appearing in folder

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