Tiger: Locate and Replace System Level Icons, Part 1
by Scott Chitwood, 21st July 2005

If someone were to ask me, "What is the quick and easy way to replace the System level icons on my Mac?", I wouldn't hesitate to point that user towards Candybar as it is easily the best software based option available to us. And darn nifty too, I might add. Candybar is an essential appplication, and I wouldn't go without it on my Power Mac Quicksilver G4.

My iBook G4, on the other hand, was still sporting its default Tiger icons and I got a hankering to switch them out the old fashioned way — by digging into the System and manually replacing them on by one. My one concern in that approach was how to locate and document the necessary files so I could easily revert back to the originals should the need arise.

The first thing on my agenda was to locate all of the .icns, .png and .tiff files buried within the System. The Terminal, and its "locate"command, were my helpers for this part.

Please note: these searches were conducted on an iBook G4 running Mac OS X 10.4.1, results will most likely vary by machine and operating system.

locate .icns
locate .png
locate .tiff

Once each of those queries were run, a quick copy and paste into a plain text document saved the results for further exploration. Each document was then dissected and categorized into various other documents to make them a little more helpful and less daunting to use. The entire set of text files, which includes a wide array resources, is available for download if you'd like to use them. An example file, Classic resources, has been pasted below.


ICNS Resources
/System/Library/CoreServices/Classic Startup.app/Contents/Resources/Classic.icns
---------
PNG Resources
/System/Library/CoreServices/Classic Startup.app/Contents/Resources/Classic00.png
/System/Library/CoreServices/Classic Startup.app/Contents/Resources/Classic10.png
/System/Library/CoreServices/Classic Startup.app/Contents/Resources/Classic20.png
/System/Library/CoreServices/Classic Startup.app/Contents/Resources/Classic30.png
/System/Library/CoreServices/Classic Startup.app/Contents/Resources/Classic40.png
/System/Library/CoreServices/Classic Startup.app/Contents/Resources/Classic50.png
/System/Library/CoreServices/Classic Startup.app/Contents/Resources/Classic60.png
/System/Library/CoreServices/Classic Startup.app/Contents/Resources/Classic70.png
/System/Library/CoreServices/Classic Startup.app/Contents/Resources/Classic80.png
/System/Library/CoreServices/Classic Startup.app/Contents/Resources/Classic90.png
----------
TIFF Resources
/System/Library/CoreServices/Classic Startup.app/Contents/Resources/Classic.tiff


With a good list of files to aid me I was able to hone in on a few key areas of the System that contained the icons I wanted to change.

The CoreTypes.bundle contains folder icons along with other icons that appear within Finder, Toolbar, floating palettes and alerts.

/System/Library/CoreServices/CoreTypes.bundle/Contents/Resources/


You'll also want to go into the Dock.app to switch out .png files for the Finder, Trash and other desired changes. Don't forget to have a peak at the Dashboard items!

/System/Library/CoreServices/Dock.app/Contents/Resources/

Of equal importance is the System Extensions; icons for various media, internal drives, external drives and RAID disks need to be changed.

/System/Library/Extensions/


It should go without saying that a visit to the Finder resources is a required stop on this tour.

/System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app/Contents/Resources/


Have a desire to change your Menubar icons? Look in the Menu Extras folder.

/System/Library/CoreServices/Menu Extras/


A few more top level System icons can be found in the SystemUIServer.app.

/System/Library/CoreServices/SystemUIServer.app/Contents/Resources/


That's it for part 1. Next time around we'll get into the tools and methods used to switch your System level icons!