Changing Default System Icons

LiteIcon is a pretty self explanatory program. And it's free.

 

There's also CandyBar, which is $13, but very widely used and of extremely high quality.

 

Whilst the OP said they didn't want CandyBar, I still recommend it. Very good program.

 

hehe - yep, apparently my itchy trigger finger won out over my ability to read the entire OP. Oops.

 

I used interfacelift icons, downloaded, found the icons I wanted to change, c icon from interfacelft, get info on the standard icon, select the top image on get info and v. It was tricky at first but then I got the hang of it, but if you want to do all icons, like new folders and stuff, I would recommend Candybar also. They give you 25 changes free, then you have to purchase it.

 

I am not sure if the location of the System icons has changed in 10.4 but this is the most recent tutorial I could find 10.3.

The steps in this article are what I used to follow all the time when changing default system icons. I was too cheap to pay for Candybar and still am . I haven't used this since either 10.2 or 10.3 because you can now change all of the icons which I cared about in 10.4.

http://interfacelift.com/icons-mac/articles/defaults_10-3-x.php

Iconographer is a great program they mentioned in the article and it is free. It is quite useful for creating your own icons. Though I do the heavy lifting in Photoshop and copy them to iconographer for conversion.

http://mscape.com/products/iconographer.html

This article is for changing your trash and finder icons on the dock.

http://interfacelift.com/icons-mac/articles/dock_10-3-x.php

 

I just drag the file from the finder to LiteIcon and it works ok, plus its easier. Never tried CandyBar, but have only heard good things about it.