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Leopard - Change Default Icon
I've found several interesting icons, but how can I change all icons in just one shot?
Grab New Items: Download Icons
First of all, you'll need to grab some new icons; I simply love Glass Icon Set provided by Inner Mind Media.
Look Inside: Default Icons' Directory
Do you know that all of your default Leopard icons lay inside one folder? Even if you don't know, once you get inside System ▸ Library ▸ CoreServices ▸ CoreTypes.bundle ▸ (control-click) Show Package Contents ▸ Contents ▸ Resources, you'll know that this folder ever exist.
Safety First: Duplicate Things
Even though I can guarantee that this article will do no harm to your Mac, I still recommend you to do the backup first. The easiest way to do backup is by simply duplicating this folder using keystrokes Command-C after selecting the folder followed by pasting (Command-V) to your backup destination.
Finishing Move: Replace Icons
To replace your default icons, rename the new icons file as follow :
ApplicationsFolderIcon.icns |
BurnableFolderIcon.icns |
DesktopFolderIcon.icns |
DeveloperFolderIcon.icns |
DocumentsFolderIcon.icns |
DownloadsFolder.icns |
GenericFolderIcon.icns |
GenericSharepoint.icns |
GroupFolder.icns |
|
MovieFolderIcon.icns |
MusicFolderIcon.icns |
OpenFolderIcon.icns |
PicturesFolderIcon.icns |
PublicFolderIcon.icns |
SitesFolderIcon.icns |
SystemFolderIcon.icns |
UsersFolderIcon.icns |
Move all renamed .icns files above, authenticate, confirm replace and enter your admin password. All the files should have been replaced. After you logged off and logged in again, your folders' display will be changed.
Related Entries
Some articles taken from our resource base, tightly related to current article, to empower you with more knowledge on tweaking the most out of your Mac.
47 Comments
Sam
Thanks for the cool icon trick. I noticed that the glass Icon set did not include one for the Utilities Folder. I made one by modifying the GenericFolderIcon to superimpose the ToolbarUtilitiesFolderIcon image on it and saved it as UtilitiesFolder.icns and replaced the existing icon with the new one per the instructions, however, after restart it displays as the generic folder. when I review the icons in CoreTypes.bundle it has the correct icon. Perhaps this one was omitted from the group on purpose?
Sutter
I do love the Glass icons. Very pretty.
Wim
Can you put this in a pakkage please? So we can install it with a few clicks :-)
Webmaster
Those icons are taken from Inner Mind Media. There are also other kind of icons, such as aluminium icons and chemical icons. But I'm not the original author for those icons, so it's not ethical for me to right away put the download link. ^^
Henry Cline
Thanks for the great tutorial. I have one confusion. The icns files in system core the package have titles such as: ApplicationsFolderIcon.icns where as the icns files from Inner Mind Media have neams such as: Applications-Folder.icns So, before replacing them, do I need to change the names, that is not much fun. Is there something I am not getting here?
Wendy
Henry, you'll need to change the name first and it's recommended to create the backup of original icons somewhere. Although there is a way to avoid changing filename, but this other way will be more tedious and more risky, i.e. modifying the system file.
David
I appear to have done the tedious and more ricky thing that Wendy mentioned. I just copied the icon from the get info window of the glass applications folder icon, but now I want to change it back. So I got the original applications folder icon out of the bundle mentioned above, but when I go on the get info window of that there is just the .tiff icon, not the one for the original applications folder, so I can't copy the old one back. I've already tried creating a new account to see if it would have the same icon or not and it still has the same glass icon, so I know its a system wide thing rather than user specific. Any ideas what to do anyone?
Wendy
Hi David, have you backed up the original files before you replaced it with new one? It's a system wide modification (it's proved by the prompt that ask your admin password). If you've backed up the original files, you can copy it back and your folder will be back to normal.
XedLos
I changed my "Applications Folder" icon to the glass black one but i still see the old blue one. all the other folders worked but the Application folder still shows the old Blue folder. Anyone know how i can fix this?
David
Thanks for that Wendy, when I changed it in the first place, by copying the icon in the get info window, it changed the icon in the sidebar of finder aswell from the A to the glass folder icon. Now I managed to find a friend that still had the default folder icons. So I copied the apps folder icon onto a new folder, copied that to my mac, then copied the icon to the apps folder, only it changed the icon in the sidebar to the blue apps folder insted of the normal A. It seems that I've changed a system file somewhere, but not the one mentioned above cause when I looked in there it still had the normal icon in the bundle, but whatever I've done seems to be overriding that. Any more ideas?
AJ
I use a program called Liteicon to change my default icons, and all I need to do is drag and drop. You don't need to worry about backups (unless you really want to) because you can restore all or one of the icons back to their default settings. Best of all it is a free download at http://www.freemacsoft.net/LiteIcon/index.html
Rodrigo Maia
THANKS AJ!!! It worked for me fine! funciona galera, falo valeu
Eli Ackerman
how do I put my icons back to the default settings? i dont think I made a backup.
Enna
Why dont you just use the copy and paste way ??O_o? in the info window? that way you dont have to worry about backup.
Wendy
Hi Enna, if you use the copy and paste way, you can only change one folder and if you have a tons of similar type of folder, it will be very troublesome to change one by one.
Question
I'm trying to do this, but the whole folder is owned by "system" and I only have the permission to read. I'm logged in as an admin but it still won't let me do anything. Help.
Wendy
You can drop new files to the folder, choose authenticate, and after you key in your admin password, the old files will be replaced.
Distearth
um, I don't have that folder... wtf? 10.5.3
Food
Distearth, there are 3 libraries. Follow the path carefully above. My problem is that the glass icons are too small in column view. They look like unix executable files.
sheetsman
hey i use candybar to change my icons but now i want to change them back to default. i looked in coretypes.bundle but those icons seem to have been changed as well. is there anywhere online where i can find some default leopard icons?
Answer
hey Question, you have to go to 'get info' and then change the permissions, under the 'sharing and permissions' tab. change 'admin's' permissions to 'read & write'. you will then be able to change the icons using the copy and paste method, but this method is very cumbersome.use AJ's method.
Frank
Hi everybody.... I got to change all the icons included in the LiteIcon properly, but when I try to change the rest of them by the copy paste method, I only get the original icon replaced for the quick view icon. Any ideas what Im doing wrong?...... Tnx
Levi
I'm having a small problem with the icons. there not there at all and I cant open my hard drive. can any one help?
Waqas
hey i just installed the glass icons, they look great, however i dont see the images that were on the glass folders when i downloaded the file. When i downloaded the glass folder file there were images on the glass folders but after replacing them, no images on the folders just the glass folders. is that how it is suppose to look?
Patrick
i have one question when i do it only half of the icons get changed/replace the rest of them remain the same, and even if i try the other way i just doesnt lets me any ideas?
Anonymous
Yes I can.
Andrew
My hard drive froze up as well.
Greg Loesch
Thanks for this article! Great resource and answered the questions I had. I made a little screencast showing a "walk-through" of this on YouTube. Check it out here!
Richard C H
Just a reminder. The method presented here works for most icons, however it might happen that you will still get the default burnable and smart folders. I found this article at interfacelift that shows other directories to be checked if you want a full system icon change: http://interfacelift.com/icons-mac/articles/defaults_10-3-x.php Hope it helps.
David I
It says that I do not have permissions to replace that file. Can you email me and tell me what I am doing wrong. Thank you, David I
Dana Krempels
Found the secret folder with the icons...thanks for the nice trick. But now I'm stumped. I'm trying to replace the generic document icons (OS 10.6.4) used for documents with icons that will readily allow me to distinguish .doc, .rtf, .html, and others on my desktop. Right now they look so much alike that I spend a ridiculous amount of time squinting to find the document I want. (And this is on a 17" screen...) I looked and looked in the Resources folder, but could find only a white "Generic Document" icon with no specification as I see on the desktop, where each document is labeled as DOC, HTML, etc. Is there a way I can replace each of these with very *different* looking document icons, for easy locating? Thanks a bazillion, if you can help. I'm feeling kinda dumb right now... Dana
J4M13BCFC123
Click this link for a youtube tutorial and please subscribe. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zVCmt1OzZ0
Greg
To update most of them, you can do killall Finder
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Karl with a C
This is great to know but I just have one question. I'd like to make my own icons in photoshop and replace the default ones with ones I've created. But it doesn't seem to work as a PNG as I thought it might. How can I create mac icons in photoshop? Or maybe how can I convert files to ".icns"?
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