Now that we know the locations of our System level icons, see part 1 of this report, it's time to dig in and start switching them out with something a little more pleasing to the eye. I'm sure you've got your replacement icons ready to go, but what else do we need to get started?

Since most icons are distributed as Mac folders we'll need an application that can import the folders and then export them in a variety of formats; .icns, .png and .tiff. My personal app of choice is Pixadex.




If your set of icons doesn't include Tiger specific icons, like the Burn and Smart folders, you can use a combination of Pixadex, Photoshop (or other image editor that supports transparency and layers) and Icon Composer (located in the Developer Tools directory) to create your own.

Use the "Copy Icon and Mask" option in Pixadex to paste the elements into Photoshop, merge the layers on a transparent and save as a TIFF with transparency. Then drag and drop the TIFF into the image wells in Icon Composer. You can create separate TIFF files for each size or you can let Icon Composer automatically scale and create masks for the smaller sizes. Either method works just as nice!


As noted in part 1 of this article, I really wanted to make sure that once my icons were modified I had a quick and easy method to restore them. Documenting the various locations held top priority, with that information in hand it was time to navigate to the enclosing folders and begin the process of backing up the originals and dropping in the new files.

The backup method is exquisitely simple, give a whirl in the CoreTypes.bundle directory...

• Using the Finder's "Go to folder..." command under the Go menu, copy and paste the path noted below and hit the return key.
  /System/Library/CoreServices/CoreTypes.bundle/Contents/
  
  
• Using the File > Get Info command for the "Resources" folder, change the permissions so you have full Read & Write access. You'll be required to authenticate with your admin password.
  
  
• Navigate into the "Resources" folder.
  
  
• Control-click on the icon to be modified and choose the "Create Archive of..." option in the contextual menu and zip the icon directly within the directory where it lives. Leave it in there if you like, it's a safe storage place and it will not harm or slow down your System.
  
  

With the zipped copy in place, move the original file to or copy it to a directory within your Home folder. Export your replacement icon from Pixadex in the same format as the original — clicking on the original file in the Save dialog ensures that the name is exactly the same and is much faster than retyping it!

Moving or copying the modified file is the last step. You may be required to authenticate each time if the icon being replaced is overwriting the original, if you'd like to go a little quicker just move the icon in and out of the Resources folder.

Some icons may balk at being replaced even after you've changed permissions, use the copy command in the Terminal to get around those. Using drag and drop, the Terminal will auto-fill the paths of each file, just remember to use spaces between each section of this three-part command.

cp /Users/your_user_name/path_to_new_icon /System/Library/path_to_original_icon

When changing the Finder and Trash icons make sure to change every instance of them, that way you'll see your custom icons in dialogs and alerts.

You can verify your changes as you go along by force quitting the Finder or logging in and out of your account. It's also very likely that you'll need to trash your com.apple.dock.plist (located with your User/Library/Preferences directory) and restart your Mac for the Dock modifications to fully take effect.

Once you've finished your icon switcheroo use Disk Utility to repair permissions.

That's it. Enjoy your newly modified icons!


Note: The icon set pictured above, Feels Right, is by Bandar Raffah can be found on this page at InterfaceLift.com.