Mac 101: Change Your Icons

You can copy practically any item's icon and paste it onto another to change the look of your
volumes, files, folders, and applications. We customized our Home folder's folders.

Application icons are all generally unique, so they stand out from one another. Folder icons may flaunt a plain blue folder facade or display a little extra decor on the folder icons to help you identify what's inside of them. File icons generally display a document with an application logo that lets you know what application created it or can open it. But you can change these mini works of art to ones of your own choosing or creation.

To change an item's icon to another one:

1. Select the volume, application, folder, or file whose icon you want to stamp onto another, just click the icon to select it.
2. From the File menu, choose Get Info or press Command-I to open the Info window.
3. Click the icon in the upper-left corner of the Info window to select it.
4. From the Edit menu, choose Copy or press Command-C.
    
5. Select the volume, application, folder, or file whose icon you want to replace.
6. From the File menu, choose Get Info or press Command-I.
7. Click the icon in the upper-left corner.
8. From the Edit menu, choose Paste or press Command-V to replace the icon.
    

Change Your User Icon

Your user account bears an image icon that appears when you log in, (if your Mac isn't set to automatically log you in), as your default icon in iChat, and in your Address Book card. When you first set up your Mac, you had the opportunity to select a picture to use as your icon. If you're looking for a change, here's how to select a different image.

In Accounts Preferences, you can use one of the pictures that Apple provides
for your user icon, or make your own from an image.

1. Make sure that you're logged in to the user account whose picture you want to change. From the Apple menu, choose System Preferences.
2. Click Accounts.
3. Click the Picture tab.
4. Click Edit.
5. Drag any image file from your Desktop or a Finder window onto the resulting Images window.
6. Use the slider at the bottom of the window to zoom in to your picture. You can also drag the image around in the window to adjust the framing.
7. When satisfied, click Set to make the change.

Get Icons

If you're interested in finding more icons than what's currently in your Mac, you can find plenty of third-party Mac icon creators on the web who make their designs available for download. If one suits your fancy, just copy and paste the icon as we showed you above. You can check out the icon collections on these sites:

• Pixelgirl Presents—This site houses over 350 Mac OS X icon sets that cover the graphics gamut from your basic designer looks to far-out funky. If you're looking for something unique, check out their designs.
• The Iconfactory—This site contains one of the largest Mac icon archives, plus it features IconBuilder, which lets you create your own icons, and CandyBar, which changes icons anywhere on your Mac, including the Trash and toolbar items.
• InterfaceLIFT—This site offers over 775 icon sets in a wide range of subjects. You're bound to find something you like here.