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Personalize Your Mac by Changing Desktop Icons
Change the icons on your Mac to express your personality
By Tom Nelson Tom Nelson Writer Tom Nelson is an engineer, programmer, network manager, and computer network and systems designer who has written for Other World Computing,and others. Tom is also president of Coyote Moon, Inc., a Macintosh and Windows consulting firm. lifewire's editorial guidelines Updated on December 3, 2020 Reviewed by Jessica Kormos Reviewed by Jessica Kormos Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College Jessica Kormos is a writer and editor with 15 years' experience writing articles, copy, and UX content for Tecca.com, Rosenfeld Media, and many others. lifewire's editorial guidelines Tweet Share Email Tweet Share Email Apple Macs iPad What to Know
Find an image you want to use for your new icon and copy it to the clipboard.Right-click the drive or folder you want to change and select Get Info. Click the thumbnail and paste your new image. This article explains how to personalize your Mac by changing folder and drive icons. The instructions apply to devices with macOS 10 or later. How to Create Desktop Shortcuts on a Mac How to Change Icons on a Mac
Many icon collections are available on the web. The easiest way to find Mac icons is to search on the phrase "Mac icons" in your favorite search engine. You'll find numerous sites that offer free and low-cost icon collections for the Mac, including IconFinder and Deviantart. A few sites, such as Deviantart, supply replacement images in Mac’s built-in ICNS file format, which requires a slightly different process. After you locate icons online that you want to use to personalize your Mac, here's how to change up your desktop. The 9 Best Laptops of 2022 Find an icon set you want to use online and download it to your Mac. Locate the new file you want to use. Copy the picture. How you do so depends on the format of the image you're using. If the file you downloaded is a folder with the icon already applied to it, right-click it and select Get Info from the pop-up menu. In the next window, click the icon next to the name of the file and press Command+C. If the file is a standalone image file (e.g., a PNG), open it in a program like Preview, press Command+A to select the whole thing, and then press Command+C to copy. Right-click or Control+click the drive or folder you are personalizing and click Get Info. Click the thumbnail icon once to select it. Press Command+V or select Paste in the Edit menu to paste the icon you copied to the clipboard onto the selected drive or folder icon as its new icon. Repeat the process for any other folders or drives you are personalizing. Changing a Mac s Icon With an ICNS Icon
The Apple Icon Image format supports a wide variety of icon types ranging from tiny 16-by-16-pixel icons to the 1024-by-1024 ones for Retina-equipped Macs. ICNS files are a handy way to store and distribute Mac icons, but their one downside is that the method of copying an image from the ICNS file to a folder or drive is slightly different from the usual process and not as well-known. Right-click or Control+click the folder with the icon you want to change and select Get Info from the pop-up menu. In the Get Info window that opens, you'll see a thumbnail view of the folder's current icon in the top left corner of the window. Keep this Get Info window open. In the downloads folder, select an icon you want to use. The downloaded file may contain several folders, but you want the one labeled Mac. Inside the folder are different .icns (icon files). Drag the selected icon to the open Get Info window and drop it on the icon thumbnail in the top left corner. The new icon takes the place of the old one. Was this page helpful? Thanks for letting us know! Get the Latest Tech News Delivered Every Day Subscribe Tell us why! Other Not enough details Hard to understand Submit More from Lifewire How to Change Folder Color on Mac How to Change the Desktop Background in Windows 11 How to Change Folder Icons on a Mac How to Change Icon Size In Windows 11 How to Find Files Faster Using Spotlight Keyword Searches How to Back up Your Mac to an External Hard Drive With Time Machine How to Remove the Recycle Bin From a Windows Desktop How to Change a Login Picture on Mac 16 Ways to Fix It When Windows 11 Folder Thumbnails Aren't Showing Up How to Move Google Docs From One Drive to Another How to Share and Collaborate With Google Drive How to Install Android Debug Bridge (ADB) How to Change Folder Icons in Windows 11 How to Cut, Copy, and Paste on a Mac ICNS File (What It Is and How to Open One) How to Copy Folders in Google Drive Newsletter Sign Up Newsletter Sign Up Newsletter Sign Up Newsletter Sign Up Newsletter Sign Up By clicking “Accept All Cookies”, you agree to the storing of cookies on your device to enhance site navigation, analyze site usage, and assist in our marketing efforts. Cookies Settings Accept All Cookies