How to use .icns to change dock icons?

MM07 said:

I downloaded a set of icons. They are 512x512. When I "get info" the small icon is a pic of icns.

How do I change them so I can replace the Office 2008 icons in my dock.

Thanks.

I got them from here:

http://barrymieny.deviantart.com/art/isabi-86755880

Click to expand...

When you view them, just 'copy' one, then goto your MS SlOffice folder, get info on the coresponding app, click on the icon at the upper left, paste and it should change it.

You can then either logout and log back in or do a killall dock restart.

Safer is to relog (not necessarily restart, just relog should work)

3 times now. I made a thread about changing icons, someone else made a thread, which I answered.


If you already have the .icns files, go to Versiontracker and find "Icns2Rsrc"

Open the .icns file, in Icns2Rsrc.app, and save it as a .Rsrc file. Now the copy/paste method will work, as it will have the icon in the top right, and not an "icns" icon.

The Program, Icns2Rsrc.app comes in a ".sit" file. If you cannot open it, Search Versiontracker for a program called "stuffit expander"

They're both free, and they work.

If one day you wish to make your own icons, Install Apple Developer Tools, from the OS X install disk, or their site. Look for "icon composer" in Developer/applications/utilities/

Drag a custom image into all the fields, and when prompted "Extract Layer mask" and "use scaled version" once filled out, save the .icns file, and begin with the above method.


In the future, as forum searches hardly every work (people don't put good titles for threads, no key words)

use Mroogle, it is macrumors google, it searches not only titles, but all text in a thread -- you should easily find what you need.

Link is in my Signature below:

Those files are intended to be placed inside the .app package, but you can simply double-click them to open them in Preview, then copy the image and paste it onto the Get Info window for the application. Alternatively, you can search for the small free program Icns2File (I believe) which will make the image the icon for that .icns file, which you could then copy over as you're trying to do now.

jW

MM07 said:

I tried that and it only put the icns logo as the icon. Would it switch if I killall dock?

Click to expand...

Not the icn icon. Open the icn file with preview. You'll see several images each a resolution rendition of the actual icons. Grab one (select it) then copy it then proceed to the normal changing of icon procedure.

I've done this a lot before I bought candy bar.

i.shaun said:

[...]
If you already have the .icns files, go to Versiontracker and find "Icns2Rsrc"

Open the .icns file, in Icns2Rsrc.app, and save it as a .Rsrc file. Now the copy/paste method will work, as it will have the icon in the top right, and not an "icns" icon.
[...]

Click to expand...

Thanks!

I was having trouble saving in graphic converter as an apple file icon (resource directly, not icns) while preserving the alpha channel for transparency.
Saving to .icns then creating the resource file with Icns2Rsrc worked.

norz said:

Saving to .icns then creating the resource file with Icns2Rsrc worked.

Click to expand...

Actually CocoThumbX works well too, to add a resource icon to an .icns file.

How to do it well, as of Early 2012

Ok, so the icns2rsrc doesn't work on intel macs as it is power PC, and anyhow, that's not a very clan way to do it:

So, first you need an icon. Just copy it as is - the file, not the icon in 'Get Info'. Then, for the .app you want to change the icon for, right click it and select 'Show package contents', to go into the app's files. Go into Contents > Resources and then paste the .icns there, using a unique name. You really should keep the original icon there. In fact, just memorise the original icon's name. Lowercase names without spaces as well are a good habit for system stuff. Once you're done, go back up into Contents, and open the Info.plist file in whatever text editor you want, and look for an XML <key> tag that has the word 'Icon' in it, or something like that, directly above another <string> tag, which will contain the name of the original icon (The one who's name you remembered, right?). Just change that value to the new name of the .icns you put in the Resources folder. For example:

GOES TO:

Save it and quit, and that should have changed the icon of that .app.

i dare say the o.p has probably worked out how to do it by now seeing as he posted 4 years ago!

youre advice was very "on the ball" though.