Changing the Icon For Desktop Alias

Joined
Apr 29, 2006
Messages
4,576
Reaction score
378
Points
83
Location
St. Somewhere
Your Mac's Specs
Mac Studio, M1 Max, 32 GB RAM, 2 TB SSD
I dragged an alias for my home folder out onto my desktop. This worked just fine and I can now open my home folder just by double clicking that alias. But, the icon for it is not the nice "house" icon that I see in the normal finder view. How can I change the icon used for this desktop alias. I seem to recall, from about 10 years ago, when I used a Mac at work for a while, that I could do a Get Info and then drag a new icon onto the icon shown there. Does this still work? If so, where does OS X hide its stash of icons? Thanks!
 

rman


Retired Staff
Joined
Dec 24, 2002
Messages
12,637
Reaction score
168
Points
63
Location
Los Angeles, California
Your Mac's Specs
14in MacBook Pro M1 Max 32GB 2TB
It has not changed. Just do the get info on the folder. Select/click on the icon and then do a copy. Next do the get info on the other folder. Select/click on the icon and then paste. You should see the new icon.
 
OP
mac57
Joined
Apr 29, 2006
Messages
4,576
Reaction score
378
Points
83
Location
St. Somewhere
Your Mac's Specs
Mac Studio, M1 Max, 32 GB RAM, 2 TB SSD
Great, thanks. After much fiddling around, I got it to work. I kept trying to click, copy and paste on the preview instead of the icon!

Boy it is tough to be a rank newbie again! I have mastered every version of Windows since 1993, about 10 different flavors of Linux, and about 3 different flavors of Unix. I thought I was computer savvy! I guess not! This Mac interface is challenging me.

Can you help with one more related thing? I would like most files to use the icon of the application that opens it as the default icon that Finder displays for the file. So, for example, I would like Word documents to all show up with the nice stylized blue Word icon. I can do the copy/paste thing for every file, but that will quickly become tedious. Is there a way to make this automatic?
 
Joined
Feb 14, 2004
Messages
4,781
Reaction score
166
Points
63
Location
Groves, Texas
Do a Get Info on one file, lets say a .doc file. Down near the bottom is a pulldown menu, says "open with". Select Word. Under that is a button, says "change all", click it. This will associate all .doc files with Word.
 
OP
mac57
Joined
Apr 29, 2006
Messages
4,576
Reaction score
378
Points
83
Location
St. Somewhere
Your Mac's Specs
Mac Studio, M1 Max, 32 GB RAM, 2 TB SSD
Hi cradom, thanks. Eventually I stumbled over this one myself, but I just don't like the default icon that Mac OS X uses for the file type. Apparently there is no way to change that default, short of buying a third party app like CandyBar? Hard to believe...
 
Joined
Feb 14, 2004
Messages
4,781
Reaction score
166
Points
63
Location
Groves, Texas
If you have Xcode installed, you could use the ICNS editor and edit the .icns file in the app bundle. Right/control click on the app and select "show package contents". Look in the resources folder. Find the one the app uses for files and edit it. Try this at your own risk. Worst that can happen, you have to reinstall the app.
 
OP
mac57
Joined
Apr 29, 2006
Messages
4,576
Reaction score
378
Points
83
Location
St. Somewhere
Your Mac's Specs
Mac Studio, M1 Max, 32 GB RAM, 2 TB SSD
Thanks cradom, but for a Mac newbie like myself, that sounds too risky. I will accept my fate for now - I may get more adventurous when I am more comfortable with Mac OS X. Thanks for the help though - much appreciated.
 

Shop Amazon


Shop for your Apple, Mac, iPhone and other computer products on Amazon.
We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon and affiliated sites.
Top