How can I get the actual image of an image file in OS X?

Question

When I use iconForFile: in NSWorkSpace class, I get the default Mac image file icon.

However, I would like to get the actual image that are previewed on the desktop.
How can I go about this?

score 4 · Accepted Answer · edited Jan 23 '14 at 17:18

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[[NSImage alloc] initWithContentsOfFile:filename]

edited Jan 23 '14 at 17:18

Jay

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answered Jan 23 '14 at 07:09

Wil Shipley

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score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 26 '14 at 23:57

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If you want the contents of the image file, use [[NSImage alloc] initWithContentsOfFile:filename] as in Wil's answer.

If you want the way the image file appears in the Finder — a preview of the image file's contents formatted as an icon — you'll need to talk to the QuickLook framework. Call QLThumbnailImageCreate and pass an options dictionary containing YES for the kQLThumbnailOptionIconModeKey key.

answered Jan 26 '14 at 23:57

rickster

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This works very well! However, it is not showing previews for folders. I plan on using '''iconForFile''' from NSWorkSpace class but I was wondering if this could be achieved using QLThumbnailRequest. – wayfare Apr 03 '14 at 03:44

How can I get the actual image of an image file in OS X?

2 Answers2