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In the Finder, select a file or folder with an intriguing icon. An Info window opens, showing the current icon at the top-left, next to the file or folder name. Select the file you want to paste the icon onto. You can easily restore the default icon at any time. Just select the icon at the top of the Get Info window and press the Delete key.

What is an ICNS file?

This removes the pasted icon from the file and restores its original icon. The SetFile command, which is part of the Xcode Tools distribution, offers a powerful way to hide or show custom and default icons. Its attribute flag -a allows you to toggle the custom icon flag for files and folders. To enable custom icons, use the C option uppercase. To hide custom icons, use c lowercase instead.

Use your own picture or a picture from the web

These methods change a file or folder only on the surface. The next sections will show you how to customize icons at their core. These icons have been carefully designed so you can quickly identify the icon with the application and its function. Best of all, you can mess with the icons as much as you like without affecting how the application itself works.

Update application icons to create a new, creative, or personalized touch. You can customize application icons just as you would customize sounds or embedded images.

Where Mac System Icons & Default Icons Are Located in Mac OS X

In the Applications folder, select an application you want to work with. Control-click right-click the icon and select Show Package Contents from the pop-up. Navigate into the Contents folder.


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Control-click right-click on the Info. A window labeled Choose Application appears, taking you to the Applications folder; scroll down and select TextEdit and then click on the Open button. For example, I have text files that ends with. Icons for file types are handled by Launch Services the service determining, among other things, which application handles a file type.

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The file icon is always provided by the application handling opening a file by default. This way, e.


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What you need to do is add your file type definition to the application that opens it by default, or create your own "dummy" application for the file type. As an example, my system does not yet know about. TextMate uses an unusual format for Info.

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The first child element of it, enclosed in curly braces, contains a file type definition, complete with name for file type column in Finder , file extensions, and the name of the icon file ADA for TextMate. To support. For simplicity's sake, I'm using the same icon file, but we can create one ourselves, copy it to TextMate. Now, close TextMate if it's running, move the application TextMate. Close it, and move it back, then open it yet again.

This is done so Launch Services picks up the changes to Info. If you don't want to associate an application to open.

Change the additions to the file to the following:. Now, the application declares the file type, but tells the system that it does not know how to handle it Apple gives the example of Finder declaring font types, although it cannot open them itself.

Apple Icon Image format - Wikipedia

If you already have an application associated with. Open of the application's Info. Modify this file in This will change the test. Since I enjoy recursion, lets try this:. Now we can open the file's Get Info dialog, click the desired, future document icon on the top left, Cmd-C to copy it, open the document file's Get Info dialog, click the undesired, current document icon on the top left, and Cmd-V to paste the icon we want. Alternatively, you can open the image file you want to use as icon in Preview, Cmd-A to select all, Cmd-C to copy the image to clipboard.

Then open the target document's Get Info dialog, select the icon to change in the top left, and Cmd-V to paste the image over it. July 27, at 7: James says: July 28, at 8: July 29, at 9: Joe DiMaggio says: November 29, at 6: August 15, at July 28, at 6: Mark says: July 29, at 7: HK says: October 20, at 6: Mike says: June 16, at 9: UbuntuXP says: October 12, at February 21, at 9: December 5, at 6: Richard Hoefer says: March 14, at 5: Badger says: November 16, at 4: Rob says: June 12, at 7: