How to Spice Up Your OS X Desktop with Custom Icons
Personalize Your Mac by Changing Desktop Icons
Your Mac's desktop is a lot like your home; it needs to be personalized to make it seem like it's your place. Changing desktop icons is one of the easiest ways to bring a touch of you to your Mac's desktop, and it's as easy as a few mouse clicks.
If you're going to personalize your desktop, you're going to need some new icons. That means either copying existing icons or creating your own.
In this guide, we're going to look at copying icons from one of the many icon collections you can download and use on your Mac.
The easiest way to find Mac icons is to search on the phrase 'Mac icons' in your favorite search engine. This will return numerous sites that have icon collections for the Mac. One of the sites I often visit is The Iconfactory. Since I'm familiar with the site, let's use it as an example of how to change an icon on your Mac's desktop.
We're going to use two of the freeware icon sets from The Iconfactory. First up is the Doctor Who icon set. As part of this set, there's an icon of the TARDIS. As any Doctor Who fan knows, the TARDIS is the time travel vehicle the Doctor uses to get about in. It will make a great hard drive icon for your Time Machine drive. Get it? TARDIS, Time Machine!
The second icon set we'll use is Refresh Snow Leopard, which contains a few icons you can use for various folders on your Desktop.
You can find the two icon sets by clicking on their names below.
Doctor Who
Refresh Snow Leopard
Studio Ghibli
The links above will take you to a page that describes the icons. You can download the icons to your Mac by clicking the Apple icon under the pictures of the icons in the set.
Each icon set will download as a disk image (.dmg) file, which will automatically be converted to a folder once the download is complete. You'll find the two icon folders in the Downloads folder (or your default folder for downloads, if you save them somewhere else), with the following names:
To learn how to use the icon sets to change either a folder icon or a hard drive icon on your desktop, read on.
To change your Mac's Finder folder icons, all you need to do is copy the new icon you wish to use, and paste it onto the old one. The process is simple, but it requires a few steps.
To start, select an icon you want to use as your first new icon. We're going to use the Refresh Snow Leopard icon set we downloaded in the previous step.
Inside the Icons folder, you'll find 26 folders, each with a unique icon and a folder name associated with it.
If you examine the 26 folders, you'll find they're empty folders, with no sub-content.
What each folder does have, however, is an assigned icon. That's the icon you see when you view the folder in the Finder. Each folder also has a name associated with it. You'll notice the names mirror the names of popular folders your Mac already has, such as Movies, Pictures, and Documents. These names are only suggestions for where to use the icons; you can freely use them for any folders you wish.
I'm going to use the Documents icon in the Refresh Snow Leopard icon set to replace the generic folder icon used by my About folder. My About folder is where I keep all of the material related to the About: Macs web site, so having a distinct icon will make it easier to find when I open Finder windows.
To copy the icon from a folder, follow these instructions:
The folder will now be displaying its new icon.
You can use the same process to change desktop hard drive icons. For additional information, read on.
To change your Mac's hard drive icon, all you need to do is copy the new icon you wish to use, and paste it onto the old one. The process is simple, but it requires a few steps.
To start, select the icon you want to use as your new hard drive icon. We're going to use the Doctor Who icon set we downloaded in the previous step.
Inside the Icons folder, you'll find 8 folders, each with a unique icon and a folder name associated with it.
If you examine the 8 folders, you'll find they're empty folders, with no sub-content.
What each folder does have, however, is an assigned icon. That's the icon you see when you view the folder in the Finder.
To copy the icon from a folder, follow these instructions.
That's all there is to changing desktop, hard drive, and folder icons. All that's left is to find icon sets that match your personality.
Your Mac's desktop is a lot like your home; it needs to be personalized to make it seem like it's your place. Changing desktop icons is one of the easiest ways to bring a touch of you to your Mac's desktop, and it's as easy as a few mouse clicks.
Where to Get Icons for Your Mac
If you're going to personalize your desktop, you're going to need some new icons. That means either copying existing icons or creating your own.
In this guide, we're going to look at copying icons from one of the many icon collections you can download and use on your Mac.
The easiest way to find Mac icons is to search on the phrase 'Mac icons' in your favorite search engine. This will return numerous sites that have icon collections for the Mac. One of the sites I often visit is The Iconfactory. Since I'm familiar with the site, let's use it as an example of how to change an icon on your Mac's desktop.
Download the Icon Sets
We're going to use two of the freeware icon sets from The Iconfactory. First up is the Doctor Who icon set. As part of this set, there's an icon of the TARDIS. As any Doctor Who fan knows, the TARDIS is the time travel vehicle the Doctor uses to get about in. It will make a great hard drive icon for your Time Machine drive. Get it? TARDIS, Time Machine!
The second icon set we'll use is Refresh Snow Leopard, which contains a few icons you can use for various folders on your Desktop.
You can find the two icon sets by clicking on their names below.
Doctor Who
Refresh Snow Leopard
Studio Ghibli
The links above will take you to a page that describes the icons. You can download the icons to your Mac by clicking the Apple icon under the pictures of the icons in the set.
Each icon set will download as a disk image (.dmg) file, which will automatically be converted to a folder once the download is complete. You'll find the two icon folders in the Downloads folder (or your default folder for downloads, if you save them somewhere else), with the following names:
- Doctor Who Mac
- Refresh Snow Leopard Mac
- Studio Ghibli Mac
To learn how to use the icon sets to change either a folder icon or a hard drive icon on your desktop, read on.
To change your Mac's Finder folder icons, all you need to do is copy the new icon you wish to use, and paste it onto the old one. The process is simple, but it requires a few steps.
To start, select an icon you want to use as your first new icon. We're going to use the Refresh Snow Leopard icon set we downloaded in the previous step.
Copying the New Icon
Inside the Icons folder, you'll find 26 folders, each with a unique icon and a folder name associated with it.
If you examine the 26 folders, you'll find they're empty folders, with no sub-content.
What each folder does have, however, is an assigned icon. That's the icon you see when you view the folder in the Finder. Each folder also has a name associated with it. You'll notice the names mirror the names of popular folders your Mac already has, such as Movies, Pictures, and Documents. These names are only suggestions for where to use the icons; you can freely use them for any folders you wish.
I'm going to use the Documents icon in the Refresh Snow Leopard icon set to replace the generic folder icon used by my About folder. My About folder is where I keep all of the material related to the About: Macs web site, so having a distinct icon will make it easier to find when I open Finder windows.
To copy the icon from a folder, follow these instructions:
- Open the Refresh Snow Leopard Mac folder, located in your Downloads folder.
- Open the Icons folder.
- Right-click the Documents folder (or the folder of your choice) in the icon set, and select Get Info from the pop-up menu.
- In the Get Info window that opens, you'll see a thumbnail view of the folder's icon in the top left-hand corner of the window.
- Click the thumbnail icon once to select it.
- Press command + c or select 'Copy' from the Edit menu.
- The icon has now been copied to your Mac's clipboard.
- Close the Get Info window.
Changing a Folder Icon
- In the Finder, browse to the parent folder of the item whose icon you wish to change. In my case, I will browse to my Home folder, which is where I will find my About folder.
- Right-click the folder whose icon you wish to change.
- From the pop-up menu, select Get Info.
- In the Get Info window that opens, you'll see a thumbnail view of the folder's current icon in the top left-hand corner of the window.
- Click the thumbnail icon once to select it.
- Press command + v or select 'Paste' from the Edit menu.
- The icon you copied to the clipboard earlier will be pasted onto the selected folder icon as its new icon.
- Close the Get Info window.
The folder will now be displaying its new icon.
You can use the same process to change desktop hard drive icons. For additional information, read on.
To change your Mac's hard drive icon, all you need to do is copy the new icon you wish to use, and paste it onto the old one. The process is simple, but it requires a few steps.
To start, select the icon you want to use as your new hard drive icon. We're going to use the Doctor Who icon set we downloaded in the previous step.
Copying The New Icon
Inside the Icons folder, you'll find 8 folders, each with a unique icon and a folder name associated with it.
If you examine the 8 folders, you'll find they're empty folders, with no sub-content.
What each folder does have, however, is an assigned icon. That's the icon you see when you view the folder in the Finder.
To copy the icon from a folder, follow these instructions.
- Open the Doctor Who Mac folder, located in your Downloads folder.
- Open the Icons folder.
- Right-click the 'The TARDIS' folder, and select Get Info from the pop-up menu.
- In the Get Info window that opens, you'll see a thumbnail view of the folder's icon in the top left-hand corner of the window.
- Click the thumbnail icon once to select it.
- Press command + c or select 'Copy' from the Edit menu.
- The icon has now been copied to your Mac's clipboard.
- Close the Get Info window.
Changing Your Hard Drive's Icon
- On the desktop, right-click the hard drive whose icon you wish to change.
- From the pop-up menu, select Get Info.
- In the Get Info window that opens, you'll see a thumbnail view of the drive's current icon in the top left-hand corner of the window.
- Click the thumbnail icon once to select it.
- Press command + v or select 'Paste' from the Edit menu.
- The icon you copied to the clipboard earlier will be pasted onto the selected hard drive's icon as its new icon.
- Close the Get Info window.
- Your hard drive will now be displaying its new icon.
That's all there is to changing desktop, hard drive, and folder icons. All that's left is to find icon sets that match your personality.
