How To Customise Any Folder Or App Icon Using Any Image In OS X

Customising your desktop icons isn’t strictly a time waster. Take, for example, your most-used folders. Custom icons allow you to quickly identify those folders so you can quickly pick them out from all the other folders on your desktop. That’s why your Home folder and Trash — both folders — have their own special icons. You could pay $US30 for the privilege of easily changing icons, or you could do it for free, no app required. Here’s how to customise your Mac’s icons, for free, in just a couple simple steps.

If you’d prefer to just see it done, watch the video above. The steps are pretty simple:

  1. Select the folder whose icon you want to change and press CMD+I to open that folders Info panel.
  2. Open the image you want to use for the folder’s icon in preview. Press CMD+A (to select it) and then CMD+C (to copy it).
  3. Back in the info panel, click on the icon in the top left corner and press CMD+V to paste your customised icon image.

That’s all there is to it! It couldn’t be easier, and it works on folders, apps and any other icon you want to customise. As I mentioned in the video, I particularly like doing this for oft-used folders so I can see at-a-glance which is which without having to read. I can identify an image more quickly than I can parse all the text — it’s the same reason why OS X ships with custom icons for your Trash and Home folder, both of which are just folders like any other.


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