Learn how to customize your Finder folders in macOS Tahoe 26 by changing the folder color or adding an icon or emoji.
Mac’s operating system has allowed using a picture as the folder icon for decades. Plus, you can change the folder background to a different color or image.
macOS 26 takes things further by introducing additional customization options tailored to the folder icon.
You can now personalize your folders with popular icons (symbols) or emojis. So, if you’ve a folder where you keep just your college PDFs and Word documents, you can add a study emoji to it. Similarly, you can use a family icon for the folder containing your family pictures and a globe symbol for the folder consisting of your travel photos. You get the idea…
In addition to using icons and emojis, macOS Tahoe also lets you change the folder icon color. Therefore, instead of sticking with the familiar blue folder icons, you can now change them to red, orange, yellow, green, gray, purple, blue, or something else.
This feature seems to be inspired by the Folder Colorizer third-party app, which has allowed changing the folder icons for a long time.
Add an icon or emoji to a folder on Mac
Update your Mac to macOS Tahoe 26 and follow these quick steps to personalize the folder with symbols, glyphs, and emojis.
1) Right-click or Control-click over a Finder folder and select Customize Folder from the menu.
2) Browse through the stock icons and glyphs across categories such as People, Animals & Nature, Food & Drinks, Activity, Travel & Places, Objects, and Symbols to select the one you want to use. You can also click Emoji and pick one from there, or use the search field to find the right one.
3) Click anywhere outside the icon picker to save your changes and exit the customization screen. You’ll now see that the selected icon or emoji is stamped in the middle of the folder icon.
Change the color of a folder icon on Mac
Unlike the above-mentioned icon feature, which is standalone, the folder color change is linked to the old tags feature. Earlier, when you added a tag to a folder, it would just show a small colored dot before the folder name. However, selecting a tag now applies that color to the entire folder icon.
Right-click over a folder in Finder or Desktop and select one of the tags from the menu. To see all tags, go to the Customize Folder section and then click one of the colored dots at the top.
Change the color of all your folders on Mac
If you don’t want to change folder colors individually or add tags to do so, you can pick a desired color for all your Finder folders. Just note that doing so won’t change the color of any folders that you have customized on a per-case basis using the above-mentioned ‘Tags’ feature.
- Open System Settings on your Mac running the latest version of macOS Tahoe 26.
- Select Appearance from the left sidebar.
- Click Folder color and select a suggested color, or click Custom Color to make a pick from millions of options.
Remove the folder icon or revert to the default blue color
Right-click or Control-click over a folder on your Mac and select Customize Folder from the menu. Then, click Clear to remove the added symbol or emoji. To return to the original blue folder icon, click the current color or hit the tag icon to remove all tags.
If you had chosen to change the color of all your folders, return to System Settings > Appearance > Folder color and select Automatic to revert to the natural look.
Custom folder icons on iCloud Drive
Changing the folder icon and color of online folders, such as those in iCloud Drive, syncs to your other devices running the latest version of OS 26. Just head to the iCloud Drive section in macOS Finder and add custom folder icons and colors. Remember that you can also change iCloud Drive folder color and icon in the iOS 26 Files app on iPhone and iPad.
As of now, these custom folder icons don’t show up in iCloud Drive on Windows and on the web.
Also, check out: How to change and customize app icons on Mac