ColorfulSidebar for Mac1.1.2

Name: ColorfulSidebar
Rating: 4.3889 (24 reviews)

20 December 2013

Make Lion's grey Finder sidebar icons color again.

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What is ColorfulSidebar for Mac

ColorfulSidebar offers a simple but pleasing visual modification for OS X 10.7's Finder.

OS X 10.7 brought greyscale icons to the Mac OS X Finder window sidebar, but if you'd rather have some color back in your desktop window sidebars, you can get this done easily through a third party plugin.

If you've been following some of our other Lion tips, you may already have SIMBL installed, otherwise it's a small download.

Installation Instructions

Download and install SIMBL, which you can get here
Download the ColorfulSidebar SIMBL plugin (direct link) or visit the developers home and mount the DMG file
Move the ColorfulSidebar.bundle into the following SIMBL plugin folder:~/Library/Application Support/SIMBL/Plugins/
Either login and logout of Mac OS X, or just kill the Finder through the Terminal to relaunch it: killall Finder

One oddity about this solution is that you may need to kill the Finder again to bring the color icons back after a full system reboot, otherwise this works trouble free.

If you ever want to get the grey icons back, you just need to remove the ColorfulSidebar.bundle file from the SIMBL plugins folder and then relaunch the Finder again.

On a somewhat related note, you can also bring back the personal folders in your OS X Lion Finder window sidebars. Those icons will gain color again too.

What's new in ColorfulSidebar

Version 1.1.2:

Add the target application to Info.plist.
PowerboxInjector is no longer required when used in EasySIMBL1.6 or more.

10 Best Mac Cleaner Software to Optimize your Mac

0.0

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Albabe

Sep 16 2016

1.1.2

5.0

Version: 1.1.2

New Simbl Client (since the Original went away!) https://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/56755/mysimbl

g6295526

Jul 3 2015

3.0

The latest Mac security update 2015-005 seems to have disabled ColorfulSidebar from working. Anyone have suggestions to remedy this? Thank you.

Mar 14 2014

This is an AWESOME(!!!) little ditty that brings colors back to a Colorless Corporation (Apple). I recently realized that the reason why Mac's recent OSs are such a pain in the proverbial posterior, is because these Apple "Engineers" don't actually work on a Computer for a Living. They work on working on a Computer for a living. There's a BIG difference. They're more concerned with what their geeky little personalities think is cool (and I know a few of these guys) rather than creating something that actually helps a Working Person's Workflow and Workload. As an example: In Mavericks you can no longer default the OS to Double-Clicking on a Folder and having it open in a new window. One of the SIMBL guys is working on that, and some people are having success (not me). What can I say - I'm still pissy that they got rid of WindowShade... sigh. I don't want my Computer to be a Cartoon - I want it to help me with my Work... not slow me down and annoy me. Just FYI: I'm a geek... but these boys at Apple make me look norBal.

nutella59UCLAedu9864

Nov 25 2013

1.1.1

Version: 1.1.1

Is there a way to get back the color also for the mailboxes in Apple Mail?

dalesorel

Oct 25 2013

1.1

4.0

Version: 1.1

I sure hope this is updated soon for 10.9 Mavericks so I can get the color back in both my favorites and tags.

Aargl

Oct 23 2013

Actual site is: http://cooviewerzoom.web.fc2.com/colorfulsidebar.html Current version is 1.1.1 and supports OS 10.9. (haven't tried it myself yet)

Kranboll

Sep 9 2013

No longer works, oh wait, sometimes it does. If anyone has a straightforward solution that an ordinary mortal can grasp, please post.

Brooklyn-Al

Jun 16 2013

Trying to bring back color in finder on Mavericks works fine except color is lost on the individual tags but all other items in the sidebar have good color. Will this be updated for Mavericks?

katdev

Apr 18 2013

THANK YOU, cooViewerZoom. I'm still shocked that Apple removed the colors. What a pointless downgrade. So nice to have my colors back. I'm having one issue with it that I've had on multiple computers, even after clean installs: I keep shortcuts to my network shares in the sidebar under Devices, and they disappear when this plugin is running. Has anyone else seen this? Know of a workaround? I have since put shortcuts to the shares in a folder and put the folder on the sidebar, but this is not ideal.

MarckyG

Dec 5 2012

I am using this since Lion. I love it. But since Mountain Lion 10.8.2., is anyone else experiencing extreme delays until the sidebar becomes colorful after a boot?

bthoma6

Nov 16 2012

Thank you so much for Colorful Sidebar. It was so easy to install and immediately, I had the colors and icons back into my sidebar, just as they were before I installed Mountain Lion. Now if you could just get Quicken to work on Mountain Lion, I would be a happy camper. Quicken Essentials for Lion and Mountain Lion stinks!

B-Jefferson-Le-Blanc

Jul 29 2012

Except 1.1 doesn't work reliably, unlike version 1, which worked like a dream.

Simbasounds

Jul 27 2012

Thanks cooViewerZoom.. you are a genius

Fvdg

Jul 26 2012

So... how do I install this version 1.1...? There is a plug-in and an injector and more as loose files on the disk image download, what goes where? All files in the SIMBL plug-in folder? Or is sub folder? Does SIMBL even work with 10.8...?

May 18 2012

1.0

Version: 1.0

Clever little plugin :) It's a little tricky for novices to install. I think the developer should put an alias to the SIMBL plugins folder in the disk image, or else advise typing G in the finder and pasting the folder path in.. And then of course there's the issue requiring the Finder to be relaunched: http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/42910/relaunchfinder

May 11 2012

I have clients who can't live without color in their sidebar, and they don't want to hear about manually relaunching the Finder, so I created an App to relaunch the Finder, called... ~≈ RelaunchFinder ≈~ (v1.0 Cocoa build) I made an installer which puts the App into Applications and adds an entry into the current user's Startup Items, so it's all very armchair. Awaiting to pass MacUpdate's testing, but available here: http://macmatrix.blogspot.com/p/relaunchfinder.html

Lounge-Deluxe

May 10 2012

The 10.7.4 update seems to have killed my CSI, does anyone know if this is due to SIMBL or the CSI plugin? I need my colors!

Gary30

Apr 27 2012

Ah, much better now.

Lvdoc

Feb 12 2012

How ironic. I started with Macs around 1987. Everything was black and white. It eventually went to gray, and people celebrated. Then we clamored for color. We eventually got color, albeit only 256 colors. But it was revolutionary. Now Apple wants to go back to black and white. Sigh.

Lik

Dec 7 2011

4.5

I am really happy with the colorful icons … I only give it 4.5 though because the direct download link is broken, the website is in japanese only (though the "letters" are beautiful!) and a SIMBL plugin install is not a cool user experience. But it's only half a star, so ... ;-)

Ean

Dec 1 2011

Working great here with Lion 10.7.2. Loooooove having my custom disk icons back!

Nov 30 2011

Download doesn't work for me?

Vitaly

does not work for me under lion

153957photography

Great, works as advertised, just wish it also worked for save dialogs..