Building mac app on Xcode 15 and Tahoe icons

Question

Created Jul ’25

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I’m still using Xcode 15 to build my mac apps. My icons use the rounded rect style but Tahoe still wraps them in its own rounded rect (even when I use the official Sketch template (1)). I made an .icon with Icon Composer and added it to my project. When building in Xcode 26, that works fine: It uses the .icon in Tahoe and the .icns in older systems.

But: I need to compile my app with Xcode 15 (need supports for older MacOS). Xcode 15 doesn’t know about the .icon files and so it ignores them.

So I have two questions:

How does Tahoe check if it can use the .icns files as is or when it needs to add the rounded rect?
Is there a way to make the .icon files work in Xcode 15?

(1) It works when the icon has an opaque background. But when adding a slight alpha, it doesn’t. Same file, same setting otherwise.

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Answer 1

JWWalker OP

9h

I added a .icon file to my project in Xcode 15, and it did get added to the Contents/Resources folder of my app, next to the .icns file of the same name. Tahoe does not display the new icon, but for all I know, that may be a caching issue, as the machine has previously seen the old icon.

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Answer 2

Etresoft OP

8h

All you need to do is take some existing icon image as use it as a background template. You can even use your existing, post icon-jail image on Tahoe.

Make sure that your content doesn't extend beyond the edge of the squircle. You'll probably want to add a thin shadow border so the icon looks decent on older versions of macOS. On Tahoe, if your squircle is good enough, then it will only its own border - kind of an icon ankle-monitor rather than icon-jail. But it looks fine.

You could even Liquid Glass your icon to the max in Icon Composer, then export it as PNG images and use them on old Xcode/OS versions. The only thing you really lose with this approach is the dynamic dark version. Even the clear and tinted versions looks decent.

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