Why have boring blue folder icons on your desktop when you can turn them into cats? Well, cat emoji at least. As CNET first pointed out, it turns out you can quickly customize your Mac desktop folders with emoji of your choice. It’s a fun, amusing trick that’s also useful if you’re looking for a visual way to organize the folders on your laptop or PC. You can, for instance, choose a briefcase emoji so you can more easily identify work files or organize travel documents with a plane emoji.
Here, we’ll guide you through the quick process step by step so you can start transforming your blue folder icons into whatever your heart desires, whether it’s Halloween pumpkins, hearts, or even poop — we’re not judging.
How to turn your desktop folder icons into emoji
First, you may need to create a new folder if you’re not using an existing one. To do that, right-click on your homepage and click on New folder.
After that, find the emoji you want to use. For example, you can head over to Google and do an image search for the emoji you want, like “cat emoji.”
Look for an image, ideally one with a checkered background so you’ll still have the blue background behind the image visible.
After finding the image, right-click and select Copy Image.
Alternatively, if you wish to save the image for any reason, drag it to your Desktop or Documents folder to save it. You can then open the emoji image in Preview by double-clicking on it. Click Edit and then Copy.
Go back to the folder you created. Right-click on it and click Get Info.
Click the blue folder icon in the top left, and then type Command + V.
And voilà! You’re done, and your fun new cat or smiley face emoji should now be where the plain blue folder once was.