Custom Icons

For those who don't know how to make custom icons in OS X, here is a little tutorial.


Stealing Icons:
To steal an icon from another app, folder, or file, select the file, and right click it. Select "Get Info"

In the information window, you will see the file's icon in the top left corner. Click on it, and you should notice it turn blue (for being selected). Select "Edit>copy".

Now "get info" from the file that you wish to place this icon to, and select it's icon in the top left corner. Select "edit>paste".


The icon should now be changed.

If it did not work, re-copy the other one, as sometimes It doesn't go in the clipboard the first time.



Creating custom icons:

You will need is Xcode tools. This comes in your mac installation disc. Insert the disc and find the Xcode tools installer. Once you finish the installation, you will need to open up the icon creator tool

HDD/Developer/Applications/Utilities/Icon Composer.app


Open the app, and drag a custom photo into all the empty fields. Select "file" from the top, and save as..

The file it outputs will be a .icns file. You cannot use this yet.


Download Icns2Rsrc.app

Launch the app, select "File>open" and select your icns file. Now select "file>save" and it shall save it as an .rsrc file


You can now "get info" and copy the icon to paste onto another file.



alternatively, you can download free .icns files that are pre-made from the internet. Sometimes you can even "get info" and steal the icon off the icns files themselves without converting them to rsrc, so give it a try.