Change Drive Icon Mac Os

It can be a lot of keep track of when you connect a lot of drives to your Mac—or connect a particular external hard drive to a lot of different Macs. Changing the icon for your drives is a quick way to visually tell them apart.

Similar to changing folder and application icons, but the process is different in a few key ways. For one thing, the change carries over from one Mac to another, which is great if there’s an external drive you regularly connect to different Macs. In fact, custom icons will even show up the bootloader. So if you’ve installed Windows with Boot Camp or created a USB installer for macOS, a custom icon can make it easier to spot which drive you want.

Where to Find Hard Drive Icons for macOS

Next, make sure the drive you want to give a custom icon is connected to your computer. Then, open the Finder and click your computer under “Devices.” You’ll see all of your connected drives. Right-click the drive you’d like to give a custom icon, then click “Get Info.”. Nov 09, 2004  It turns out that the process of assigning another icon is remarkably similar in Mac OS X, actually! The basic idea is that you find the icon that you like, then do a “Get Info” on that item. Then, with the Get Info window open, similarly click on the hard disk icon you want to change and select “Get Info”. Instructions to change the icon in macOS Download the appropriate.zip file and open it to see the contents. Browse to find the desired.icns file and save it to your Desktop. Connect your device and wait for it to mount on the Desktop.

Mac

Just find a few custom icons to try out at first. Look for icons that are square, ideally 512 by 512 pixels (or higher), and in Apple’s .icns format. You might also find icons in PNG format you can convert to ICNS using an online converter like iConvert Icons. Here’s a quick roundup of icons I’ve found:

  • Some external hard drive manufacturers may offer icons to match the drives they sell. Both Lacie and Akitio offer icon packs, for example. Doing so certainly makes it easier to keep track of which drive is which.
  • This forum post has a collection of icons for various solid state drives, including the Intel icon I used in the images above. It’s perfect if you’ve added your own solid state drive to an older Mac, and want to show that fact off a little.
  • DeviantArt has a bunch of hard drive icons, but you’ll have to do some digging. I used this one for my second drive in the first screenshot of this article.
  • IconArchive is another site worth checking out, offering .icns files for basically all of their icons.

Beyond this, I suggest doing some Googling. If there’s a specific drive you’d like an icon for, searching for the model with followed by “icns download” or “png” will sometimes give you want you want, assuming someone else took the time to make you an icon. Good luck!

Dec 19, 2016  HOW TO SHOW MAC'S HARD DRIVE ICON ON DESKTOP IN HIGH. Hide Desktop Icons (Including Hard Drives) On Mac OS X. How to change Folder icon on mac siera,mac. Discover how to change the icons in Mac OS X 10.10 Yosemite. We show how to change the default icons and use whatever icons you want on your Mac - whether swapping icons from one app, file.

Step One: Copy Your Icon File

If you’ve downloaded a few icons you’d like to try out, lets get started! Open the folder where you’ve stored your icons.

Copy the icon you’d like to use for your drive by right-clicking the icon and then clicking “Copy.”

Change Drive Icon Mac Os

Now we’re ready to paste the icon onto our drive.

Step Two: Paste Your Icon File

Next, make sure the drive you want to give a custom icon is connected to your computer. Then, open the Finder and click your computer under “Devices.” You’ll see all of your connected drives.

Right-click the drive you’d like to give a custom icon, then click “Get Info.”

This will bring up the information screen for your hard drive.

If you click the icon at the top of this window, you will see a blue highlight, indicating that the icon has been selected.

Once you see this, press Command+V on your keyboard to paste your icon. (If nothing happens, the icon you copied may not be compatible, but you can sometimes work around this by opening the icon file in Preview, selecting the entire canvas, and copying that.)

You might be asked for your password.

Enter it, and the change will take place.

Repeat this process for any other drives you’d like to customize.

To undo your change, open Get Info for the drive again, then select the icon and hit the Delete key. The icon will revert to the default.

In these screenshots I applied custom icons to internal drives, but it also works for external hard drives, including USB flash drives. Even better: in my tests, changing an icon on one Mac will change it on every Mac, so you’ll always be able to quickly find your drive if you’re using another computer.

No related posts.

[Update:Check out the new OWC icons here!]

Recently, OWC Chris S. demonstrated how to create custom Mac icons for use with folders and apps among other things. However, if you’re looking for pre-made icons from OWC, we have you covered.

Change Drive Icon Mac Os X

OWC ships all of its drives with a custom drive icon to help differentiate it from your other FireWire and USB devices. But when you reformat your drive, you’ll lose the icon along with it and you’ll be left only with the generic orange FireWire or USB icon for your drive.

Change Icon On Mac

If you have reformatted your drive and would like access to the drive icon (or some of the other custom icons we’ve created), simply head to our Custom Hard Drive Icons page to download them now.

Once you’ve downloaded OWC’s custom hard drive icons, just follow this step-by-step guide to changing your drive’s current icon. (Note: This tip is compatible with macOS Sierra!)

1) Begin by clicking on your chosen icon and selecting “Get Info” from the File menu (Or, press Command-I). That will bring up a window that looks like this (some dropdown menus may be open, in our image they are all collapsed).

Change Drive Icon Mac Os Download

2) Then, click on the picture in the top left corner and press Command-C – or pull down the Edit menu and select “Copy” to copy the hard drive icon.

3) Perform the same “Get Info” (Command-I) on your drive you wish to paste the icon onto.

4) Click on the picture in the top left corner and press Command-V – or pull down the Edit menu and select “Paste” to paste the new icon onto your hard drive.

Change Drive Icon Mac Os 7

5) Your drive is ready to go!

Be Sociable, Share This!

Mac Os Icons

Prices, terms, and availability subject to change without notice. Not responsible for typographical, technical, or descriptive errors of products herein.
OWC is on-site wind turbine powered at 8 Galaxy Way, Woodstock, IL 60098 | 1-800-275-4576 | +1-815-338-8685 (International)
All Rights Reserved, Copyright 2018, OWC – Since 1988