Had enough of the Red-tailed Hawk in Mail.app’s default icon? Or just fancy something different?
It’s not hard to make the change. An old hint on ResExcellence suggests that pasting a new icon into the Inspector Window won’t work. Perhaps it didn’t once, but it does now.
With a little bit of cutting ‘n’ pasting you can enjoy a new look like this, using the sleek 10.4 Mail icon from the Xpack icon collection:
Here’s how you do it (or follow the guide on VK4DX Mac Stuff, complete with pictures):
- Find an icon that you would like to use instead of the Red-tailed Hawk. ResExcellence and InterfaceLIFT are excellent icon resources, or see below.
- Find the icon you just downloaded in Finder. Command-I or select “Show Info” from the File menu in Finder to bring up the Inspector Window.
- Click on the small image of the icon in the top lefthand corner of the Inspector Window and then type “Command-C” to copy it.
- Check that Mail is not running. Find Mail in your Applications folder. Make a Duplicate of it (Command-Click and “Duplicate”) just in case.
- Highlight the original app and bring up the Inspector Window for it. Click once on the small picture of Mail’s icon in the top lefthand corner and type “Command-V” to paste in the new icon from the Clipboard.
- All done. I didn’t even need to log out. The new icon loaded into the Dock when I launched Mail again.
Possible Replacement Mail icons
There’s a list of 150+ different stamp icons which covers everything from women’s suffrage to the Super Mario Brothers and most things in between.
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Teh buzzard is teh win!!!!
Where can I get teh grumpy buzzazrd !??11!1!one!one11one!!
Yeah! I want that ‘bird’, too! :)
I’ve put it up.
I can’t remember which collection it came from.
Thanks a lot!
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Anyone know how to switch Mail.app’s icons randomly from a within a selected folder? I use Cmd-Tab all day, and would love to have a different one appear each time. Thanks!
[...] Change Apple Mail?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s Dock icon [...]
Doesn’t work for me – the small, upper-left corner icon is a generic “png” or “ico” Preview icon. The full-size preview is the real icon, but it doesn’t matter – whenever I paste the icon into Mail, it’s the generic Preview PNG or ICO version, not the actual picture. What gives?
Cartman, you might need to run the icons through an app like Iconographer
first to convert them into a format that Macs can understand. Which one in particular were you after?
worked great! can’t wait to get to customizing my icons. i didn’t even have to exit mail to get it to work!
Cartman (and anyone else having trouble switching icons), try this:
- Download icns2icon from http://www.icons.cx/goodies/
- Run the application
- Drag your .icns file onto the application
- If it’s worked, your icon in the Finder should stop using the generic preview icon and now be using the actual icon image
- CTRL+Click the .icns file and select ‘Get Info’
- Click the small icon in the top-left of the info window – it will get a blue highlight if you’ve done it right
- Click Edit > Copy from the menubar
- Go to Mail in your Applications folder
- CTRL+Click the Mail.app and select ‘Get Info’
- Select the small icon in the top-left
- Click Edit > Paste from the menubar
That should do the job – it’s the only way that’s worked for me.
Does anyone have a .psd file of the apple post mark ? I have tried to create one to put over any icon image but my expertise with photoshop isnt up to it.
So if anyone has already created the apple postmark that i could apply over any image i’d love a copy.
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I followed your instructions for changing my mail icon, but the icon keeps reverting to the original Mac mail icon. I’m using OS 10.4.7 on an Intel-based iMac. Any thoughts? Thanks!
Hmmm… Which icon are you trying to use?
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Only seems to work until I quit Mail upon which the Mail’s Icon in the Dock reverts to the standard version. Tried various accounts with the same results. The icon Mail displays in the Finder is the one I pasted in but the Dock version reverts. Anyone else noticed this?
Chocky — Are you quitting Mail first before you try this?
Tim,
Yes, Mail was not running when I did this. Since then I’ve tried it on two machines, both runing 10.4.8 (Mail 2.1 (752/752.2)) and both worked as they should. I just got back to the original machine and now that it’s been restarted the new icon stays put.
It doesn’t give me an option to duplicate Mail.app. That’s the step I’m stuck on. Thanks for any help.
@Adrian: Ctrl-Click (right-click) any file or folder to duplicate!
Seems not to work in Snow Leopard (upgrading reset to the default).
In Snow Leopard, doesn’t let me paste. I can paste in the duplicate copy, just not the original mail.app. Clipboard shows my buzzard is there. App is not locked, have the right permissions, etc.
Any ideas?
Applications which are part of the standard OS install will have permissions of:
Owner : System – R/W/X
Group : Wheel – R/-/X
Everyone : R/-/X
so you won’t be able to paste the icon unless you change the permissions first.
Don’t forget to change the permissions back when you’re done.
Didn’t work for me on Snow Leopard, until I changed the permissions (as stated above, thanks Chocky!).
To do this:
– Open the Get Info panel for the app you want to change the icon of
– At the bottom expand the ‘Sharing & Permissions’ section
– Click the padlock and enter your password
– Change ‘everyone’ to ‘Read & Write’
You should now be able to copy your icon over.
Don’t forget to put the permissions back!