Weblog of A Command Line Junkie

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Changing OS X Finder Icon in the Dock

Posted by admin Sat, 20 Dec 2008 16:06:00 GMT

I have not had much time to post here in a while due to my demanding work schedule. This may be a little pointless, but here it is:


The following steps will work for both Leopard and Tiger to change the Finder Icon in the Dock.

1. Open your Terminal application in Applications->Utilities

2. Type the following command
(This will open a finder window. Just leave it open)

3. Go back to your Terminal and type the following command: (This will make a backup of the current finder.png in your dock in case something goes wrong)

4. Now type the following command in your Terminal: (You will be asked for your password here. You will not see it as you type. Just type it and hit enter. The above command copies the finder.png to your desktop. Be sure to substitute <your-user-name> for your actual user name.)

5. Now you have a file called finder.png on your Desktop. Click on the file to select and hit Command-I or select Get Info from the file menu. Under Details in the Get Info Window, You will need to click on the little lock to unlock it and type your password.

6. Open thee finder.png on your desktop with Photoshop or your favorite Image Editor.

7. Edit and Save the file. You can Also Design your own transparent png. Just make sure it is 128x128. You can convert icon files to pngs as well, but I am not going to get into that in this post.

8. Click and Drag the saved finder.png file from your desktop to the finder window that you opened in step 2. You will be asked to Authenticate. Just click Authenticate and type your password.

Now you need to clear the icon cache for the dock:

9. Open a new finder window and hit command - F. In the drop down that appears in the upper left, You will need to select "Other". In the pop up window that appears, Check the Box next to "System Files" and hit OK. Then in the drop down next to the one that has "System files" selected, change from "Don't include" to "include".

10. Type com.apple.dock.iconcache in the spotlight search bar in that window, then drag the file that appears to your trash.

11. Go back to your terminal and type the following: Now you should have a shiny new Finder icon.
I happen to really like the OS X Finder icon, so just switching the colors was enough for me.

Happy Hacking!