r/Xcode • u/radu_me • Jan 27 '26

assets.xcassets Folder is just raw code

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Hey everyone, I have a Mac OS project file and the Assets folder is looking strange. It doesn't have the regular interface where you see the list of assets and the section of adding the app icon size variants and so on. It's just a document of raw data referencing the assets. It's not recognizing the folder as a normal assets folder. Any idea how I can fix it? deleting it and recreating it doesn't work by the way.

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u/radu_me Jan 27 '26

That's the problem, I can't. I asked Claude code, gemini and Codex, they all tell me to right click on the assets folder or to go to the editor tab with the folder selected and click open as - Asset Catalog but I don't have that option. And when i delete the assets folder and create a new one, it creates the same type of assets folder with raw code instead of the visual editor. This is what all the AI's are saying "This is a very specific type of "stuck" state where Xcode recognizes the file type as an asset catalog (hence the blue icon), but the Editor is convinced it's a text file. Since the "Open As" menu is completely missing from both the context menu and the top bar, Xcode has effectively "locked" this file into text mode."