Changing System Icons in MacOS X 10.2 by Michael Coyle

The ResExcellence mailbox has been stuffed with email from readers asking how to modify the toolbar and folder icons in MacOS X 10.2. Well then today is your lucky day!

Panic Software has teamed up with The Iconfactory to create CandyBar! This drag-and-drop utility allows you to change: Toolbar icons, Folder icons, Trash, Devices, clippings and more. The folks from IconFactory included a few icon sets to get you started and there are more in the ResEx Archive.

What's that? You say you're a purist and you want to change System icons the old fashioned way? Starting with MacOS X 10.2 the icons which were once in the HIToolbox are now in a file called SystemIcons.rsrc that resides in the folder shown below.

SystemIcons.rsrc is basically a clone of the HIToolbox so all the previous edits relating to icons still apply to this new file. Just open a copy in Iconographer and hack away. Replacing the original SystemIcons.rsrc is best done under MacOS 9 to prevent permission problems.