How to change the icon of a program on the Mac

Last updated Jun 23, 2017 575

MAC personalize and change the icons of each program will be this short guide. It must first be pointed out that there are various ways to perform this kind of operation. The first, of all, is to use some software designed specifically for this function, as CandyBar. There is a method that is to run a simple copy and paste, which will be analyzed in this guide.

Before you copy the icon in the application folder, make sure that the image has a size ” .icns “. Otherwise, the next step of the guide will explore this possibility.

1.) Let’s say you want to change the icon of Messaging integrated into the Mac. In this case, you will have to convert the icon format ” .icns “. To do this you can use a site conversion, as iconverticons.com. Once you select the image, you must click on the Convert button and wait for the end of the operation. After a while, you can download the icon by clicking on ” Download .icns “. ( or download free Mac icons for example: https://iconfactory.com/freeware/icon )

2.) Once the icon is available, you must find the Applications folder through the Finder. Come within click, clicking on ” ctrl “, the program icon you want to change. Select ” Show Package Contents “, then enter the Contents folder, and to follow, in the Resources. At this point, you need to identify the current icon of the application, which usually bears the same name of the same, with the addition of the extension ” .icns ” (for example: messages.icns).

3.) Now you can paste the image, thus converted to the format ” .icns “. Before you do this, you should make a backup of the previous icon, in case it was necessary to restore it. After copying the old icon to another folder, you can change the name of the new icon, it must have the same name as before.

4.) Now you can paste the new icon, replacing the old file. To detect the changes you just made, in case the app is localized in our Dock, you must remove the old icon by dragging it to a space outside the Dock, and then drag the application icon from the Applications folder, directly in our dock. So, in a few steps we explained how, we can change an application icon in the Mac. This can be implemented for any program on your computer, customizing it to the maximum.