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How to Diagnose Finder Losing Icons for Folders on Mac

After a reboot, several strange issues come up from nothing. Suddenly all system directory lost their icons: Desktop, Home, Downloads, Pictures, Movies, etc., have the normal folder icon.

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Brithny· Answered on Jun 22, 2026

How to diagnose Finder losing icons for folders? Don't worry, and it's possible to restore the missing icons for your folders. This occurs probably because you deleted some essential files by mistake. This article will introduce 3 practical ways to fix this error: deleting the .plist file, recovering the lost icons via EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard for Mac, and using the Terminal.

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The most straightforward way to diagnose Finder losing icons is to delete the .plist file, which will force a new file to be created upon the next reboot. Follow the steps below:

Step 1. Open Finder and select 'Go > Fo to Folder'.

Step 2. Type ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist in the search box.

Step 3. Move the file to Trash.

If this does not help, you can install the EaseUS Mac data recovery software that can recover deleted lost icons and restore desktop on Mac with 3 steps:

Step 1. Open the recovery tool on your Mac, and choose the partition that stored the lost icons before.

Step 2. Click 'Search for lost files' at the bottom to view all the files on the selected partition, including the missing icons.

Step 3. Select the recoverable icons and click 'Recover' to restore them. Save them in their original location.

In addition, you can use Mac Terminal to diagnose Finder losing icons for folders. Check out the following steps:

Step 1. Open Terminal in Application > Utilities folder.

Step 2. Type mkdir ${TMPDIR}/com.apple.IconServices, and press 'Enter'.

This command will recreate the com.apple.IconServices directory, which apparently gets deleted from time to time.

Use EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard to recover deleted or lost files easily and quickly.

Tutorials on how to recover lost, deleted, or formatted data from HDD, SSD, USB, SD card, or other storage media on Windows and Mac.

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