May 02 2008

Changing an Application Icon

Published by at 6:03 am under System

  

One of the defining concepts of working on a Mac is that things (usually) work just as you think they should. This is the culmination of good design translated into working code. The short video that follows is an example demonstrating how easy and intuitive it is to change the icon for an application. Believe it or not, it’s as simple as copy/paste.

This is a great trick to have up your sleeve when working with development tools that create a default icon, for example the Script Editor. With this approach you can quickly change an icon to reflect that something visually represents what the application does. And to help, do a quick search on Google for Mac OS X icons and you’ll be amused for hours…

7 responses so far

7 Responses to “Changing an Application Icon”

  1. # coolmacgeekon 01 Mar 2010 at 11:36 am

    WOOW INCREDIBLY EASY!!

    THANK YOU!

  2. # Anonymouson 21 Mar 2010 at 11:11 am

    thanks!

  3. # darrendbon 30 Mar 2010 at 8:28 am

    I’ve done the copy and pasting of icons. It looks fine in the dock and in Finder when the app is NOT running. However, when i launch the app, the icon reverts back to the original icon.
    I have multiple installations of Eclipse, and multiple icons in my doc, and they all look the same (now only when they are running or in the CMD+Tab quick switch view).
    Is there a way to put the final nail in the coffin and have the icons completely changed, even when running or using CMD+Tab ?
    Thanks!

  4. # darrendbon 30 Mar 2010 at 8:37 am

    OK, of course immed after posting my question i figured it out. I did a ‘show package contents’ on the app i wanted to change, and the app i wanted to steal the icons from. Then I copied the .icns file over and renamed it. Boom! Perfect!
    So then i wonder, is there a way to edit the name of the app that appears next to the icon in the dock and in the CMD+Tab quick view? I mean without actually renaming the app itself, like meta data or something?
    When i have multiple Eclipse apps open, It might be nice to be able to change ‘Eclipse’ to ‘Eclipse FlashBuilder4′ on one, and ‘Eclipse FDT3.5′ on another, for example. But I don’t want to break any linkages. Eclipse crashes if i try to rename the app itself. Thanks again!
    –
    d

  5. # Gabbyon 22 Apr 2011 at 10:57 am

    THANK YOU SO MUCH :D

  6. # Clareon 14 Jun 2011 at 3:52 pm

    I can copy icons, but it’s not allowing me to command-v the new icon in. Help!

  7. # LobJobon 26 Nov 2011 at 6:39 pm

    Yo Clare
    Just manually go up to the “edit” tab and paste it there