Tired of the same old blue staring at you from every corner of your Mac’s Finder? Feeling like a fresh look is long overdue? Find out here how to change the default folder color on a Mac and deck out your directories in a hue that’s more “you.”
First, the Colors of the Rainbowl
When Theodoric from the silver mining town of Freiburg in early 14ᵗʰ century Germany filled a glass bowl with water and called it a raindrop, he was not playing around. He was on a mission: to explain rainbows — and, remarkably, he did!
Scaling up that tiny prism of a raindrop, Theodoric traced the sky’s arc of colors to two refractions and one reflection. The glass bowl experiment could explain not only a rainbows’ gracefully curved shape but also why no two people ever see quite the same one.
Now, back on earth and in front of your Mac, perhaps it’s time to borrow a favorite hue from Theodoric’s rain-bowl and make it your own — by changing the default color for your Finder folders:
How to Change the Default Folder Color in Mac Finder
Time needed: 2 minutes
To change the default color of folders (folders that have neither a color assigned through a label or sport a custom folder icon) in Finder on a Mac:
- Open System Settings on the Mac.
Here’s how: Select System Settings… from the Apple logo () menu, for example.
- Go to the Appearance category.
- Open the menu for Folder color.
No “Folder color”: With Tinted selected for Icon & widget style, Icon, widget & folder color appears in place of Folder color, and changes to the color apply to icons as well as folders.
- Choose the desired default color for folder icons from the list.
Adding a color: You can choose a custom color in addition to those preset in the menu, of course; see below.
Use a Custom Color for Folders on a Mac
To pick a custom color for folder icons on a Mac:
- Ideally, make the color you want to use visible on screen.
Here’s how: Create a new image in Mac Preview, then add a shape — say, a rectangle — with the desired fill color; you can also use an online palette editor, of course, such as Colors.co.
Here’s why: For choosing a custom folder color, System Settings offers only a basic color picker. - Open the Appearance category in System Settings; see above.
- Select Choose Color… for Folder color (or Icon, widget & folder color).
- Use the spectrum and translucency setting to select a color.
Existing color: Click Color Picker to select the color from the image you prepared earlier.
How to Change the Default Folder Color in Mac Finder: FAQ
Does changing the default folder color also affect folders with custom icons?
No.
The default folder color in Finder applies to all folders that have neither a custom icon nor a particular color assigned through a label.
(Tested with macOS Tahoe 26.0; first published October 2025)