Colorize Menubar Icons by Michael Coyle

Based on a tip from Rodney Noble, this simple tutorial will show you how to add color to menu bar icons in MacOS X. (If you're particularly talented, you can even create replacement icons!)

By default, these Menu Extras are stored in the "/System/Library/CoreServices/Menu Extras" directory. While you can log in as root and edit these directly, I suggest that in your home directory you create the "/CoreServices/Menu Extras" directories and copy any menu apps you wish to edit. (See image below)

Once you have created the new folders and copied the (dot)menu programs, Control-Click on the Clock.menu and select "Show Package Contents". (More info)

Once the package contents are reveled to you, open the "/Contents/Resources" folder. In all of these menu programs, this is where the TIF images are that create the look of the menu icon.

Open the "Clock_Base.tif" image in your favorite editing application. Since I'm not very artistic, all I did to the image was adjust the color balance to make it blue. Simple, yet effective. :-)

Below you can see the before and after images.

Once you have modified the image, save you work and close all the Clock.menu package windows. The modified version is ready to use.

Command-drag the original grey Clock off the menu bar (it poofs into oblivion) then drag your modified Clock to the menu bar to add it! You should see the results immediately.

You can go through your (dot)menu items one at a time viewing the package, picking the TIFs to modify, then replacing the originals in the menu bar.

As another quick example, below are before/after images the four TIFs I colorized in Airport.menu.

Sometimes there are a lot if TIFs to modify. For example, the battery indicator has over a dozen to represent the various states of remaining charge.

If you make a mistake, don't panic. Simply throw away the bad copy and make a fresh one from the original "/System/Library/CoreServices/Menu Extras" directory.