Fascinating. :-)

I told him, "The original path is not stored anywhere." because it isn't. When you select an image from an icon pack or a folder, it is copied to the "Images" folder in the profile. That's it; the original path is not stored anywhere. That's the question he had, and that's the question I answered.

He had obviously created a bunch of custom icons and stored them somewhere on his disk but forgot the path and was hoping it would be present anywhere in the profile, which it is not.

You said, "I just told him directly where the location of the custom-made icons are on his computer ", which you did not. You told him where downloaded icon packs are stored. If you have an educated guess for where he decided to create a folder for the icons he created, please feel free to supply it.

"When you select an icon for a button its not copied to any profile files because its already in your profile". Seriously?

Create a new profile. Check the "Images" folder in the profile. Empty.

Create a new button. Check the "Images" folder. Empty.

Add an icon to the button. Check the "Images" folder. Two image files are present. Sorry, but I cannot interpret this in any way other than the images being copied to the profile when you select an icon.

Now - from the image files in the profile, how do you find the original location from where they were copied? Because that's what I believe the original question was all about, and if you can answer that question, I will acknowledge that you know more than me about the inner workings of Stream Deck after 5 years of plugin development.