Want to add some personality to your MacBook or iMac? A great way to do so is by changing the color of a few folders on your Mac.

Whether you do so to dress up your desktop a bit, make Finder easier to use, or want to use color to easily identify certain types of folders, you can do it in just a few moments. Here's how to change the color of folders on a Mac.

How to Change Folder Colors on Mac

You don't need to download any third-party software to change the folder colors on your Mac. Just follow these steps:

  1. Create a new folder, if you don't want to change an existing one. Cmd + Shift + N is a handy shortcut for this.
  2. Right-click on the folder you want to change colors for, and choose Get Info.
  3. At the top of the resulting window, you'll see a picture of a folder next to its name. Click this image, then press Ctrl + C or choose Edit > Copy from the menu bar.
Mac Get Info Folder

You've copied the folder to your clipboard, allowing you to paste it into another app and edit it. Next, let's look at the process of adjusting the color in Preview:

  1. Open the Preview app. You can do this quickly by pressing Cmd + Space to open Spotlight, then typing Preview.
  2. With Preview open (you'll see its name at the top-left), select File > New from Clipboard or press Cmd + N. If this option is grayed out, restart your Mac and it should then work correctly.
  3. Click the Show Markup Toolbar button. This looks like a marker and is to the left of the Search icon. If the window is too small, you'll see it under the >> menu instead.
    Markup Toolbar Preview Folder Mac
  4. Choose the Adjust Color tool. In macOS Big Sur and later, this appears as three sliders. On earlier versions, it looks like a prism with light shining through.
  5. Use the sliders that appear in the Adjust Color window to change color of the folder to your liking. You can tweak the Tint, Temperature, Saturation, and more.

Once you're satisfied with the new folder color, it's time to copy it back to your clipboard and paste it onto the folder whose color you want to change.

  1. Choose Edit > Select All from the menu bar, or press Cmd + A, to select everything in Preview's editing panel.
  2. Press Cmd + C to Copy the folder icon with the new color.
    Mac Adjust Folder Color
  3. Finally, move back to the Info tab of the folder from earlier. Click the folder's image at the top-left again, and hit Cmd + V to Paste the new folder over the old one. You should see the folder color update within a moment, and it will be reflected on your desktop, in Finder, and everywhere else you use it.
  4. Repeat these steps to change the color of other folders on your Mac. If you want to make many folders the same color, you can just Paste the new icon into the Info windows for additional folders without going back into Preview.
Mac Folder Color Changed

Preview gives you basic options for changing a folder's color. If you want more control, you can follow the same process as above, but paste the image into Photoshop or another Mac image editing app to tweak the color more accurately.

Other Ways to Change the Color of Folders on Your Mac

The above method for changing a folder's color works fine, but it's not particularly convenient. If you want to change the color of many folders, you can use other methods to speed up the process.

macOS allows you to paste any compatible image onto the folder icon at the top-left of the Info window to set that as the new folder image. So instead of changing the folder colors yourself, you can download folders that others have made, such as msikma's macOS Folder Icons on GitHub. This contains a few folder colors ready for you to paste.

As another option, Image2icon is a Mac app that's built around creating custom folders. Simply drag an image onto it, then drag the resulting image onto a folder to change its icon. If you download high-quality color samples from the web, you can use this tool to quickly change the color of many Mac folders.

Image2icon has its own color tweaking utility built-in, as well. Just keep in mind that some functions are locked behind in-app purchases.

It's Easy to Change Folder Colors on Mac

Now you know the method for changing the color of any folder on your Mac. Just copy it into an image editor, tweak the color, then copy and paste it back for a fresh folder look.

It's amazing what a little splash of color can do to make your Mac desktop feel fresh. And this is only one of the ways to tweak how Finder looks on your Mac.