How do I change icons for external drives in Ventura?

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Level 1

6 points

How do I change icons for external drives in Ventura?

I've been a Mac user for >20 years. Now I'm a senior I like to keep things simple and familiar – with specific icons for each external drive, which have colour names. So "White Box" has a white icon, "Red Box" has a red icon etc – which makes them easy to identify.

For years I've done the familiar "Get Info" copy and paste routine. But this doesn't work any longer.

So now I have half a dozen identical gold / yellow icons – and have to double-check the names each time.

What's going on? Is there a workround?

I saw an app called something like Icon Champ but couldn't really work out what it was trying to do.

Help!

Ken in Liverpool

iMac 27″ 5K, macOS 13.7

Posted on Oct 11, 2024 4:01 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Ian Leckie

Level 4

2,271 points

Oct 16, 2024 9:11 AM in response to welsbywrites

Hello Ken! It does still work, but I´ve found it only seems to do so when you use the Preview app (it´s there, pre-installed on your Mac!).

So, open whichever graphic you wish to use for an icon in the Preview app, and “Select All” from the menu.

Then select “Copy” from the same menu.

Now do the usual “Get Info” and paste routine on the icon you want to change…it should work!

For some reason I´ve found that when selecting all and copying in Preview it´s best to use Preview´s menu, not the keyboard! Don´t ask me why! Hope this helps you! Cheer, Ian.

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Answer 2

welsbywrites Author

Level 1

6 points

Oct 17, 2024 9:46 AM in response to Ian Leckie

Thanks, Ian

That's brilliant.

Open in Preview, remove background if necessary – then select all / copy / paste!

The hard part was finding some images of hard drives in the colours I want; maybe it's time to come up with a new naming scheme for my network.

Thanks much

Ken

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Answer 3

BDAqua

Level 10

245,483 points

Oct 11, 2024 10:16 AM in response to welsbywrites

Hi Ken,

I don't actually know, but it may require ...

Disabling and Enabling System Integrity Protection | Apple Developer Documentation

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Answer 4

Old Toad

Level 10

210,615 points

Oct 11, 2024 10:44 AM in response to welsbywrites

For external drives you would copy the image you want to use for the drive, select the drive and bring up its Info pane, go to the icon at the top of the Info pane, select it and do a paste, ⌘+P.

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Answer 5

BDAqua

Level 10

245,483 points

Oct 16, 2024 12:08 PM in response to Ian Leckie

👍

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