Where apps hide your files

ICC profile folders on macOS

Updated 2026-10-28 · 5 min read

macOS reads colour profiles from three ColorSync folders, in order of who can change them. Put a profile in the right one and every app that uses ColorSync sees it.

The three folders

~/Library/ColorSync/Profiles/
/Library/ColorSync/Profiles/
/System/Library/ColorSync/Profiles/

Folder	Who it applies to	Can you edit it?
~/Library/ColorSync/Profiles	Only your user account	Yes. This is where you install your own profiles
/Library/ColorSync/Profiles	Every user on this Mac	With an administrator password
/System/Library/ColorSync/Profiles	Built in to macOS	No. It is protected by the system

The user folder does not exist until something needs it. On a Mac where you have never installed a profile you may find ~/Library/ColorSync missing. Create it in Finder (a ColorSync folder in ~/Library, then a Profiles folder inside it), or with one Terminal command that only creates folders:

mkdir -p ~/Library/ColorSync/Profiles

Profiles are files ending in .icc or .icm. Both extensions are the same kind of file.

What is in each folder

The system folder holds the profiles macOS itself uses, such as these (names taken from a Mac running Sequoia 15.6):

sRGB Profile.icc
Display P3.icc
AdobeRGB1998.icc
Generic RGB Profile.icc
Generic CMYK Profile.icc
Generic Gray Gamma 2.2 Profile.icc

There are also DCI(P3) RGB.icc, ITU-709.icc, ITU-2020.icc, ACESCG Linear.icc, ROMM RGB.icc and generic Gray, Lab and XYZ profiles. Leave that folder alone. It is read-only by design, so even if you could delete from it, you would not want to.

The shared /Library/ColorSync/Profiles folder holds the colour-effect profiles Apple ships (Black & White.icc, Blue Tone.icc, Gray Tone.icc, Sepia Tone.icc, Lightness Increase.icc and similar), anything an installer added for all users, and a Displays subfolder.

Display profiles

The profiles macOS makes for each screen it has been connected to are kept here:

/Library/ColorSync/Profiles/Displays/

Files in it are named after the display and a UUID, for example the monitor model followed by a long identifier, or just the identifier when the model is unknown. macOS generates these from what each screen reports about itself, one file per display it has met, so a Mac that has been plugged into many monitors and TVs collects dozens. A profile you make yourself, with a colorimeter app or with Apple's Display Calibrator Assistant (choose Customize… in the same pop-up menu described next), is saved separately; the ls command further down shows which folder it went to. To choose the profile a screen uses, open System Settings > Displays, select the display and pick from the Color profile pop-up menu. For some screens, such as the Pro Display XDR and the 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro from 2021 on, Apple's guide points to a separate page about their presets.

Folders added by other software

Creative apps sometimes add profile folders of their own. On a Mac with Adobe apps installed, /Library/ColorSync/Profiles can contain links named Profiles and Recommended that point into /Library/Application Support/Adobe/Color/Profiles. If you use Adobe apps, their profiles probably live there, and macOS sees them because of those links. If you see links like these in the folder, do not delete them to tidy up: the apps use them.

Installing a profile

1. Quit the app that will use it, so it re-reads the list.
2. In Finder, press ⇧⌘G and paste ~/Library/ColorSync/Profiles (create it first if it is missing).
3. Copy the .icc file in.
4. Open the app again. If a new profile still does not appear, log out and back in.

For all users, copy it to /Library/ColorSync/Profiles instead and authenticate when asked.

Seeing what is installed

The ColorSync Utility app lists the profiles macOS has found. It lives at:

/System/Applications/Utilities/ColorSync Utility.app

Click Profiles in its toolbar, open a group with its arrow and select a profile; Open shows more detail. This is a safer first step than browsing the folders. To see which folder holds which files, list all three from Terminal (this only reads):

ls ~/Library/ColorSync/Profiles /Library/ColorSync/Profiles /System/Library/ColorSync/Profiles

Space, cleanup and backups

Profiles are tiny. The macOS ones range from about half a kilobyte to a few tens of kilobytes, so profiles are never a space problem. Deleting one only makes sense if it is a stale duplicate of a calibration you replaced, and then only the old file, moved to the Trash from Finder, with the apps that use colour closed.

To keep your own profiles safe, copy the contents of ~/Library/ColorSync/Profiles to a backup folder, plus any calibrated profile you saved to /Library/ColorSync/Profiles. The generated files in Displays are made by macOS and need no backup. A calibrated profile belongs to the display it was measured on; restoring it onto a different monitor gives wrong colour.

Which profile an app really uses

Having a profile installed does not mean an app applies it. Apps that manage colour, such as Preview, Photos and most image editors, read the file's embedded profile and convert to your display profile. Others ignore it. The profile a document carries, and the profile your screen uses, are separate things, so a file can be tagged Display P3 while the screen is set to another profile. To check which profile an image carries without changing it, run this read-only command (swap in your file):

sips -g profile ~/Desktop/photo.jpg

In Preview, Tools > Assign Profile permanently changes an image's profile, and View > Soft Proof with Profile previews another profile without changing the file. Both menus list installed profiles (Preview may offer only those that match the image's colour model, such as RGB), so a new RGB profile that never appears for an RGB photo is probably in the wrong folder or damaged.

Finding a profile by name

Spotlight does not search /Library support folders or your hidden Library reliably, so a profile you installed years ago can vanish from results. Everywhere indexes all three ColorSync folders by file name, your own in ~/Library and the shared ones in /Library and /System/Library, with no setting to change or permission to grant. Type the profile's likely name, such as P3 or your monitor's model, and it finds the .icc file in whichever folder holds it; ⌘↵ reveals it in Finder. It cannot tell you what is inside the profile, since it searches names only.

Common questions

Where are ICC profiles stored on a Mac?

In ColorSync Profiles folders: ~/Library/ColorSync/Profiles for your user, /Library/ColorSync/Profiles for everyone, and the protected /System/Library/ColorSync/Profiles for built-in ones.

Where do I put a new ICC profile on macOS?

Copy it to ~/Library/ColorSync/Profiles for your own account, or to /Library/ColorSync/Profiles for all users. Quit and reopen the app that will use it.

Where are display calibration profiles saved?

macOS keeps the profiles it generates for each screen in /Library/ColorSync/Profiles/Displays, named after the display and a UUID. Profiles you make with a calibrator are saved separately, usually in one of the two ColorSync Profiles folders you can write to.

Why is there no ColorSync folder in my Library?

It is created only when needed. Make a ColorSync folder with a Profiles folder inside ~/Library when you want to install your first profile.