Sometimes, Mac users might observe that icons in the Finder of MacOS or the Dock of MacOS either appear as generic icons, or they don’t match what they should be (for instance, a generic document icon instead of a PDF thumbnail, or a VLC icon showing up for a zip archive, or even a default application icon rather than Safari's).

If you're facing an issue with how icons are displayed on your Mac, you can manually clear the icon cache. This action will prompt the system to rebuild the icon cache, which can resolve inaccuracies in how icons are shown.

How to Clear & Reset Icon Caches on Mac

Important: Since you’ll be using Terminal and executing rm commands, it’s wise to back up your Mac using Time Machine or another backup method before proceeding. A mistake in command entry could result in irreversible data loss, so ensure you use the exact syntax provided. If you’re not confident working with the command line, it may be best to avoid this process altogether.

Open the Terminal and input the following command, then press return: sudo rm -rfv /Library/Caches/com.apple.iconservices.store

Then, type the next command and hit return:

sudo find /private/var/folders/ \( -name com.apple.dock.iconcache -or -name com.apple.iconservices \) -exec rm -rfv {} \; ; sleep 3;sudo touch /Applications/* ; killall Dock; killall Finder

Afterwards, it is advisable to restart your Mac in Safe Mode, which clears various caches and triggers their refresh upon reboot. The procedure varies slightly depending on whether your Mac uses an Apple Silicon M chip or an Intel processor.

• For M1 Macs, click the ? Apple menu and select Shut Down. Wait approximately 10 seconds. Press and hold the Power button until the Options screen appears. Then, while holding down the Shift key, choose “Continue in Safe Mode” to boot your M-series Mac into Safe Mode.
• For Intel-based Macs, restart the computer and keep the Shift key pressed until the Login Screen appears, indicating that the Mac has booted into Safe Mode.

Once your Mac has started up in Safe Mode, leave it idle for around 5 minutes, then go to the ? APPLE menu and select “Restart” to reboot normally. This will refresh the icon caches along with several other system caches.

The sequence of terminal commands mentioned above was sourced from Github. While these commands alone may fix the problem for some users, our testing revealed that additionally restarting into Safe Mode helped address issues related to incorrect or generic icon display in both the MacOS Finder and Dock.

Did these steps resolve your icon display problems on the Mac? If you've discovered an alternative solution or prefer a different way to refresh the icon cache on your Mac, feel free to share your experience in the comments below.

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