Sometimes, apps icon change but we like the older icon. Thankfully, it’s very easy to change the app icon in Mac.
In Mac OS, all the applications have .app extension but it ships in the form of a zip file. So you can easily check the contents of any application, find out the icon file, and replace it.
How to Change App Icon in Mac
Mac app icon is an icon file with .icns extension stored in the application.
To change the icon of the application, you need to find out the existing icon file and then replace it with the desired one.
For example, here I am changing the Firefox icon to some other icon.
1. Identify the icon file
Right-click on the Mac app and choose “Show Package Contents”. The app icon file is stored in the Resources directory. But, it’s not required to have the same name as the app. So, the first step is to find the icon file being used by the app.
Every Mac app contains the “Info.plist” file, which contains the application information. Open the file and look for the key “CFBundleIconFile”. The value of this key is the icon file name.
The below entry is from the Firefox app Info.plist file.
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<key>CFBundleIconFile</key> <string>firefox.icns</string> |
2. Replace the app icon file
Rename the current icon file to something else. For example, I renamed the firefox.icns to firefox.icns.old.
Then copy the desired icon file in the Resources directory and give it the same name as the actual icon file.
I am changing the Firefox icon with the MS Word icon, so I put the icon file in the Resources directory and renamed it to firefox.icns.
You can also change the “CFBundleIconFile” key value in the Info.plist file to some other icon file name.
3. Confirm the icon change by launching the app
Launch the application and check that icon has been changed. 🙂
Conclusion
It’s very easy to change an app icon in Mac OS. However, you should try to avoid it because any future update will override the changes. Also, if someone else will use your Mac, they will get confused because an app icon is their identity.