How To Change Icons On A Mac

Are you not happy with the look of your Mac’s icon? Well not to worry anymore as there are ways to change icons on a Mac. Thanks to designers and developers,  numerous themes, plugins, logo, template etc. come out almost every day so that we can bring an exact look to our devices, websites and the Mac, in just a minute. Moreover, many of these designs are available for free, so your bank account will not be affected at all.

Icons on the Mac represent everything starting from a file, folder, applications etc. and you might wish to change them at some point. You can go for changing the icon to make it look your way. Here in this article, we have covered how to change icons on a Mac.

See also: How to install apps on a Mac

How to change icons on a Mac:

The icons use .icns format and they are also stored using this same format. There are few ways to change the icons on a Mac and these are:

• Swapping the icons
• Downloading new icons
• Creating icons

Here we will discuss all the ways to change icons on a Mac.

How to change icons on a Mac: Swapping the existing icons

• The first method to change the icon on a Mac is to swap the icon of an existing folder with some other folder. It is nothing but copying the folder of an icon in .icns format and then paste it to that folder which you want to change. Here is the step by step process.
• First, select a folder or file in Finder and then right click on it to select the option ‘Get Info’.
• The info panel window will open where you will notice a thumbnail view of the selected folder with .icns format at the top left corner.
• Select that and choose edit>copy (command+C) and then close that window.
• Now select the folder or file whose icon is to be changed.
• Right click that folder and choose ‘Get Info’.
• Here also you will see a thumbnail view of the folder at the top left corner in .icns format. Select that and go to Edit> Paste.
• That’s it. You have now successfully changed the Mac icon.

How to change icons on a Mac: Downloading the icons

If you wish to change the Mac icon with a new icon rather than with the existing ones, then go for downloading the icon as several sources are available for that. Devianart, IconFactory are some of the popular websites that have plenty of icon collections. So, visit their official site, download the icons set and use them as your new icon.

As you download the icons, they will be available in the download folder. While some of the downloaded icons are available in .icns format some other sources make it available in an empty folder with the icons applied on that. So, once the icons are downloaded, follow the same process explained in the method 1 and the icons will be changed in just a minute.

How to change icons on a Mac: Creating new icons

If you are a design expert then you can create the icons and then use it on your Mac. Adobe Photoshop, Pixelmator etc. are some of the programs where you can design the icon and then convert the graphics to icns format. Many applications are available in the App store using which you can convert the graphics to icns format. Next, just copy that icns graphics format and paste it to the folder whose icon is to be changed. Follow the same method explained above.

So, these are the ways to change icons on a Mac. You can use any of them and it will bring a new look to the Mac.

See also: How to change a Wallpaper on a Mac