macOS Touch Bar Icons Location

Question

New MacBook Pro's with Touch Bar, in macOS Sierra, icons for the system control strip, where would they be located?

I looked under HD/System/Library/CoreServices, not there.....

Answer 1

The Touch Bar system icons are all located in /System/Library/CoreServices/SystemAppearance.bundle/Contents/Resources/Assets.car.

To name a few examples, they are named like TouchBarControlStripSpotlight or TouchBarControlStripSiriContent.

---

If you want to inspect and also change them you can use the ThemeEngine app to open the .CAR files. You can find the app/project here: https://github.com/alexzielenski/ThemeEngine

Sadly the ThemeEngine.app fails to display all icons. Some appear to be empty, but I guess thats a problem with the app. Maybe there's another, more reliable way to open .CAR files.

Answer 2

Touch Bar is introducing these new icons:

Here are the references: (You can find them and all others images in NSImage.h)

NSImageNameTouchBarAddDetailTemplate, NSImageNameTouchBarAddTemplate, NSImageNameTouchBarAlarmTemplate, NSImageNameTouchBarAudioInputMuteTemplate, NSImageNameTouchBarAudioInputTemplate, NSImageNameTouchBarAudioOutputMuteTemplate, NSImageNameTouchBarAudioOutputVolumeHighTemplate, NSImageNameTouchBarAudioOutputVolumeLowTemplate, NSImageNameTouchBarAudioOutputVolumeMediumTemplate, NSImageNameTouchBarAudioOutputVolumeOffTemplate, NSImageNameTouchBarBookmarksTemplate, NSImageNameTouchBarColorPickerFill, NSImageNameTouchBarColorPickerFont, NSImageNameTouchBarColorPickerStroke, NSImageNameTouchBarCommunicationAudioTemplate, NSImageNameTouchBarCommunicationVideoTemplate, NSImageNameTouchBarComposeTemplate, NSImageNameTouchBarDeleteTemplate, NSImageNameTouchBarDownloadTemplate, NSImageNameTouchBarEnterFullScreenTemplate, NSImageNameTouchBarExitFullScreenTemplate, NSImageNameTouchBarFastForwardTemplate, NSImageNameTouchBarFolderCopyToTemplate, NSImageNameTouchBarFolderMoveToTemplate, NSImageNameTouchBarFolderTemplate, NSImageNameTouchBarGetInfoTemplate, NSImageNameTouchBarGoBackTemplate, NSImageNameTouchBarGoDownTemplate, NSImageNameTouchBarGoForwardTemplate, NSImageNameTouchBarGoUpTemplate, NSImageNameTouchBarHistoryTemplate, NSImageNameTouchBarIconViewTemplate, NSImageNameTouchBarListViewTemplate, NSImageNameTouchBarMailTemplate, NSImageNameTouchBarNewFolderTemplate, NSImageNameTouchBarNewMessageTemplate, NSImageNameTouchBarOpenInBrowserTemplate, NSImageNameTouchBarPauseTemplate, NSImageNameTouchBarPlayheadTemplate, NSImageNameTouchBarPlayPauseTemplate, NSImageNameTouchBarPlayTemplate, NSImageNameTouchBarQuickLookTemplate, NSImageNameTouchBarRecordStartTemplate, NSImageNameTouchBarRecordStopTemplate, NSImageNameTouchBarRefreshTemplate, NSImageNameTouchBarRewindTemplate, NSImageNameTouchBarRotateLeftTemplate, NSImageNameTouchBarRotateRightTemplate, NSImageNameTouchBarSearchTemplate, NSImageNameTouchBarShareTemplate, NSImageNameTouchBarSidebarTemplate, NSImageNameTouchBarSkipAhead15SecondsTemplate, NSImageNameTouchBarSkipAhead30SecondsTemplate, NSImageNameTouchBarSkipAheadTemplate, NSImageNameTouchBarSkipBack15SecondsTemplate, NSImageNameTouchBarSkipBack30SecondsTemplate, NSImageNameTouchBarSkipBackTemplate, NSImageNameTouchBarSkipToEndTemplate, NSImageNameTouchBarSkipToStartTemplate, NSImageNameTouchBarSlideshowTemplate, NSImageNameTouchBarTagIconTemplate, NSImageNameTouchBarTextBoldTemplate, NSImageNameTouchBarTextBoxTemplate, NSImageNameTouchBarTextCenterAlignTemplate, NSImageNameTouchBarTextItalicTemplate, NSImageNameTouchBarTextJustifiedAlignTemplate, NSImageNameTouchBarTextLeftAlignTemplate, NSImageNameTouchBarTextListTemplate, NSImageNameTouchBarTextRightAlignTemplate, NSImageNameTouchBarTextStrikethroughTemplate, NSImageNameTouchBarTextUnderlineTemplate, NSImageNameTouchBarUserAddTemplate, NSImageNameTouchBarUserGroupTemplate, NSImageNameTouchBarUserTemplate

Example use in Obj-C:

NSImage *image = [NSImage imageNamed:NSImageNameTouchBarUserTemplate];

Example use in Swift:

let image = NSImage(named: NSImageNameTouchBarUserTemplate)

Answer 3

If you're interested in customizing the touch bar icons Apple provides some templates to get started:

And while they're not specific to the touch bar – which has its own design guidelines – there's a bevy of additional design resources available on the HIG.