Mac OS - Finder icons broken

[bellevue scott]

On my mac, OS 10.13.6 (although this has been happening for years now), icons appear broken. Instead I get the generic "tif" icon. This is more than just an annoyance. It has a significant impact on productivity as a graphics professional, and I'd like to understand how to fix it. And pardon me if this is an old issue, but it's been forever that this is happening, and solving this problem would really help my business work flow.

I showed this image in a Mac forum, and was immediately treated like a newbie and told by several people that this is not an Apple issue, but an Adobe issue. But I reset the default program for tifs to be "preview" and restarted, and that does not solve the issue. I've also on several occasions, if not more, gone and deleted the finder plst file and rebooted, as well as relaunching finder, and nothing helps.

How can I fix this issue? Any ideas?

[peikko2011]

Hello,

I have never used In Design and I do not even know what is for...   ;  )

TIFF, JPG etc files are created in Photoshop that I use on a daily basis.

Few years ago I started getting the random problem with thumbnails NOT showing up.

It makes my life VERY hard and I loose hours of work almost on a daily basis because of it.

I have 5 different Macs and the problem is consistent regardless of the computer I use...

There MUST be solution somewhere out there...

And yes - Always open in icon view is on.

And yes -  I have hit the Use as defaults button.

Kind Regards,

Antti

[gener7]

The problem may be where the tiffs are created by Photoshop in a way that the Finder cannot generate the thumbnails.

So have a look at this thread. High sierra 13.13.3 OS. Problem with thum… - Apple Community

Look at that last suggestion about unchecking icons in Photoshop.

Also when saving tiffs in PS try the Macintosh byte order and check on Image Pyramid in the Tiff save options.

[SarsparillaGro]

Hi Bellevue scott,

I've had this same problem and have been searching the interwebs for fixes that actually work. I found one that is different from everything else that is normally suggested.

I hope it works for you!

Basically for me it had something to do with having dropbox installed. Which is weird because I've had dropbox installed for a while and the problem only emerged recently. But then I followed the directions to remove the droop box file and it fixed it.

That being said - it doesn't seem to work for everyone but I hope it does for you.

I've cut and pasted the text from the fix and then included the original link below:

Any chance you have DropBox installed?

If so try this:
Go to /Users/youruser/Library/QuickLook/ and if there is a DropBoxQL.qlgenerator move it to the trash.
Then wait 5-10 seconds, and open a folder where previews weren't working.

DropBox will create a new DropBoxQL.qlgenerator when you login next (either logout/login or on restart) so if you want to prevent DropBox from screwing with your previews again then you'll need to put a dummy file in place.

In terminal run:

sudo touch ~/Library/QuickLook/DropBoxQL.qlgenerator 

This will create an empty file owned by root that DropBox can't overwrite (since DropBox is running as your user when you log in).

This hasn't caused any issues I can detect on my Mac Pro (10.11.6) or MacBook Pro (10.12.2) but as always YMMV.

The link is https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/182536/why-cant-i-see-thumbnails-in-the-finder

[frankf58350696]

This started happening on a folder I'm using with Google Drive Stream. It's the worst.

[shutterbugzz]

SarsparillaGro I can't thank you enough for your post! This worked for me. I just deleted the whole App, I will try and re-add it and see what happens. I messed with it a while back and moved it around and it was probably me that caused the problems. My file structures were all messed up because I tried moving the files to a different hard drive. Again, thank you so much for your post!!! I am using Mac High Sierra and I had just installed the new Photoshop/Bridge/InDesign/Illustrator/ and finally put Lightroom back on my computer so I didn't know what I had done to mess it up. LOL, It has been 14 hours of dumping files... Now, back to the drawing board!

[jzbzack]

I had this issue on macOS Mojave (10.14.5) - I solved it by deleting Google Drive Stream, one of their drive products intended to sync drive folders without actually downloading their content.

I used an app called AppCleaner to remove the app, because removing only the app the first time did not remove all of its contents.

As soon as I used AppCleaner to remove Google Drive Stream my .ARW Sony RAW files immediately previewed normally again.

Hope this helps.

[bobb84012647]

I recently aquired the same problem on my MacOS High Sierra version 10.13.6, arising seemingly out of the blue. None of the previous replies helped, but here's how I fixed it:

Right click (or control click) on a malfunctioning icon, and select Show View Options from the menu. I unchecked Show Icon Preview, then I immediately re-checked that box and all of my icon previews reappeared.

Hope this helps you too.

[SCA LLC]

Adobe Indesign 2020 files still only show a generic icon in OS 10.15.1. The workaround of using ID UTIL is not compatible with Catalina. Apple refuses to address this issue. Very frustrating as it signficantly increases time to find files.

[rafaellondon]

I think is being ages since InDesign previews don't show. It was nice before.

[rafaellondon]

I solved the problem by deleting/moving to the harddrive some files and restarting my MacBook Pro. I think this happens when the computer is on the limit of space. It makes load os sense as the CPU cant copes with  creating the previews of the files so just cancel them all.
I hope this helps.

[gsounds]

I have a workaround that might possibly work so your icons at least look like the correct ones.

The app called Image2icon will take almost any image and convert it into a ICNS file. Once you have the new ICNS file open the information window and drag the icon over the tiff image you see at the top of the window. 

It's not a proper fix but its the quick fix and aesthetically it will look right.

I have a similar problem and have tried a few things but to no resolve.

Good luck if you try this.

[Mayakai]

I'm using Mac OS Majave. Here's what fixed my missing finder icons:

"Reset NVRAM or PRAM on your Mac" https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204063