New Desktop Icons For Mac
We’ve all seen desktops even messier than this. We won’t get into the merits of proper file and folder organization, but even users for whom a messy desktop is acceptable may occasionally want to clear their desktop of all this clutter so that they can focus clearly on a new task or present a tidy backdrop for screencasts.
You can always clear your desktop by manually moving files and folders to another location on your Mac’s hard drive, but a quicker and easier way is to temporarily hide desktop items with a quick Terminal command. Here’s how to hide desktop icons in OS X.
For the purposes of this tutorial, we are going to make an icon for a pretend application called SuperDuperMegaFind. As you can see in the picture below, we start with the circle typical of many application icons today. In olden times (OS 8 & 9), Apple told developers to create application icons using a diamond shape. Quick fixes for icons missing from your desktop The desktop on your Mac serves multiple purposes, as both a representation of the Desktop folder contents in your home directory, and as a location to access computer resources, such as hard drives and mounted network shares. Mac Color Icons. These color Mac icons belong to our Flat Colors icon set.This is our second most popular icon pack after iOS.Feel free to download this icon in PNG format for free, or unlock vectors. Unlike other icon packs that have merely hundreds of icons, this monster icon pack contains 9,000 icons, all in the same style and quality. Map push pin for mac.
First, launch Terminal (located in the Applications Utilities folder). Then copy and paste the following command and press Return to execute it: defaults write com.apple.finder CreateDesktop false; killall Finder This preference disables OS X’s ability to draw desktop icons, and you’ll notice that all of your files, folders, and drives have suddenly disappeared. But don’t worry! They’re not deleted, just hidden. All desktop icons, including drives and network locations, are hidden. To demonstrate this, open a Finder window and navigate to your user’s desktop folder. You’ll see that all of your files are still fine and dandy.
OS X is simply declining to show them on the desktop. In fact, while this command is enabled, you can continue to store, retrieve, and use files on your desktop without issue. You’ll simply need to do so via a Finder window instead of the desktop itself. You can still see and access your desktop files via Finder.
When you’re ready to restore your desktop icons, head back to Terminal and use this command instead: defaults write com.apple.finder CreateDesktop true; killall Finder This allows OS X to draw desktop icons once again, and you’ll see all your icons reappear as quickly as they disappeared. This Terminal command to hide desktop icons survives a reboot, but not an OS X upgrade, so you’ll need to reenable the command if you update to a new version of OS X. If you frequently need to hide desktop icons for things like screenshots and screencasts, you may want to consider third party software such as, which offers more advanced functionality such as the ability to use a custom backdrop or hide all but a single application. But if you just need a clean desktop in a pinch, the Terminal command discussed here should do the trick. Want news and tips from TekRevue delivered directly to your inbox?
Display Icons On Mac Desktop
Sign up for the TekRevue Weekly Digest using the box below. Get tips, reviews, news, and giveaways reserved exclusively for subscribers.
Apps like have long offered a quick solution to managing your Mac’s application icons, but it’s just as simple to change most icons yourself. Here’s an overview on how to use custom icons in OS X. Standard Apps OS X includes a number of “special” applications (e.g., Calendar, Finder, Trash) that need some specific attention when it comes to changing their icons, and we’ll discuss those more below. For most apps, though, the process is fairly straightforward. First, identify the app you want to modify and find a suitable replacement icon. In our example, we’ll change the icon for iTunes in our OS X Mavericks installation to the teased by Apple during WWDC.
New Desktop Icons For Mac Shortcut
You can use practically any JPEG or PNG image file as an icon, but you’ll see the best results with uniformly sized PNGs with transparency. Great places to find replacement icons that are properly formatted include and the. Download the image you’d like to use as your new icon and open it in Preview. With the image open and Preview the active application, press Command -C to copy the entire image. Next, find the original location of your app (not it’s Dock or Desktop shortcut). For almost all applications, you’ll find the correct file in your Applications folder, located at Macintosh HD/Applications. In our iTunes example, the iTunes.app file is found in the top level Applications folder.
If you want to change the icon of a system utility like Activity Monitor or Terminal, you’ll find these apps in the Utilities subfolder of the Applications folder. Quit the app if it’s running and then highlight it in Finder. Press Command -I to open the Get Info window. Alternatively, you can right-click on the application and select “Get Info.” Here, click on the small application icon preview at the top of the window, to the left of the application name (not the larger icon preview at the bottom of the window).
You’ll see the icon preview outlined in blue once you’ve correctly selected it. Now press Command -V to paste the image you copied earlier.
You’ll see both icon previews change to display the new icon, and you can close the Get Info window if you’re satisfied with the new look. If you don’t like the way that the new icon looks, you can press Command-Z to undo the change, or highlight the small preview icon at the top of the window and press Delete to revert to the default icon. Once you’ve made your changes, the new icon will be displayed in Finder or via Desktop shortcuts. To get your new icon to show up on the Dock, either quit and relaunch the app or head to Terminal and enter the following, case-sensitive command: killall Dock Repeat this process for each app icon you wish to modify and you’ll soon have a slick custom Dock.
Now, what about those special apps we mentioned earlier? We’ll show you how to change the icons for Finder, Calendar, and Trash on the next page.