Color scheme not applied in iTerm2

I've been having the same issue and this is what seems to have solved it:

In your .bash_profile set CLICOLOR before setting TERM:

# Set CLICOLOR if you want Ansi Colors in iTerm2 
export CLICOLOR=1

# Set colors to match iTerm2 Terminal Colors
export TERM=xterm-256color

save bash file and source:

source ~/.bash_profile 

Then, in your iTerm2 Preferences > Profiles > Terminal > Report Terminal Type, set to either xterm-256color or xterm

Close iTerm2, restart it and type ls. That did the trick for me.

Good luck.

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Catalina and ZSH

If using ZSH, which is the default shell in Catalina and later, use ~/.zprofile, instead of ~/.bash_profile.

this is a really old question, but make sure your Preferences -> Profiles -> Colors -> Minimum contrast setting is not at the max... if it is and you've done what is suggested above, slide it to a lower setting and you should see the colors appear.

I had the same problem and found a solution: Profiles -> Colors -> Minimum Contrast. If it's high, then you only get black and white.