Changing system icons on Big Sur

[borp99]

Does anyone know of a working method to change system icons on Big Sur, and then reenabling SIP after this is done? It seems like the old method of disabling SIP isn't enough since Catalina. See here for more information about the new protections.

[See my larger post - 3 days later - for important updated information]
Sad news I’m afraid. I’ve been posting in a similar macrumors forum on this matter - detailing that, no matter what I do, the bright blue BS system icons cannot be replaced, even if you replace them inside the CoreTypes.bundle.

In the hope that the developers of LiteIcon would fix this problem, I’ve been in touch with them. After carefully looking into this matter, the replied to me today:

“They [System Folder icons] look similar but they are now dynamically generated from a base template icon and a glyph from SF Symbol font.
In other words they can no longer be replaced...”

I did prove that you can still run LiteIcon 4.1 (effective up to Catalina) on Big Sur if you change the string inside SystemVersionCompat.plist (inside S/L/CoreServices) from 10.16 to 10.15 but you can only change the Dock, Others, Applications and Volumes icons (and now obviously ‘not‘ the Folder ones).

You’ll still need to have SIP disabled and possibly ‘csrutil authenticated-root’ as well. Read up elsewhere on Macrumors (eg Big Sur on Unsupported Macs) to find out how to install the beta and eventual final release on your particular Mac. I’ve been able to install beta 1-3 on my Mac Pro 2010 and leave the system volume unsealed and with no snapshot booting, but this ‘may’ not entirely be necessary to get LiteIcon 4.1 to run (other than altering the SVCompat.plist file). I suggested to the LiteIcon developer that they may consider a future update with just the Folders section removed (and not the need to alter any system files to make it launch), but who knows if they’ll think this is worth their while.
[See my larger post - 3 days later - for important updated information]

 

[borp99]

Please a small instruction would be great.
How to
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My new Big Sur Folder Icons System

Nice icon!!!

[edited: rest of post was a duplicate of the one before]

 

[fisherking]

here...

 

[emoopo]

This is no problem, because I only install macOS Big Sur when the second or third official version is released.
in Catalina I have changed these system icons in the meantime.

 

[borp99]

Please a small instruction would be great.
How to
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My new Big Sur Folder Icons System

**Change Big Sur System Folder Icons***

[**UPDATED** to work with final public release of 11.0.1 on Nov 14, 2020]

NB. LiteIcon 4.1 can now only change individual app and drive icons on BS. No global change to System folder icons [is now] possible. LiteIcon will only launch on BS if you alter the SystemVersionCompat.plist string from 10.16 to 10.15, which isn’t ideal - so maybe just customise some icons via the Get Info ‘paste or drop image’ [old classic way] method (which leaves an invisible support file inside the app folder or at the drive root level).

However, just worked out @ July 31 2020, you ‘can’ globally change the system folder look to a customised one. Read on...

Big Sur does not use the /S/L/CS/Coretypes.bundle folder icons anymore to display the various System Folder icons. Instead, it uses a [generic] template folder icon (a PNG image in various pixel sizes and adds various font glyphs on top of it to denote the different types of System folder, or leaves the folder blank in the middle for new/basic folders, like the look of the old GenericFolderIcon.icns file from 10.9 and before. You can change the look of this background folder but the light blue font glyph (eg. for Applications, Library, Utilities, Home etc.) will remain being displayed in the centre of the folder, so that aspect of customising isn’t currently possible (see footnotes).

This method assumes that you have Big Sur installed on one drive or drive partition/volume and Mojave or Catalina on a different drive or drive partition/volume (High Sierra 10.13 may be OK too). **UPDATE** You can now do the whole process on just Big Sur if you want to.

Even if you want to install Big Sur on one of Apple’s supported machines, you should read up on how to install this new OS on an unsupported machine - critically as an unsealed (unencrypted) OS in either case. If in doubt, go to https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/macos-11-big-sur-on-unsupported-macs-thread.2242172/. For me, @ASentientBot's Hax3 method has worked to install many of the BS Beta versions but failed to work on the final public 11.0.1 version. Thankfully, @Barry K. Nathan's micropatcher 0.5.1 (https://github.com/barrykn/big-sur-micropatcher) worked from a patched USB stick installer.

**Further UPDATE** You no longer need to disable SIP (‘csrutil disable’) or authenticated-root (‘csrutil authenticated-root disable’) in Recovery mode for this ability to change system folder icons. But you still need an unsealed system.

1. Boot normally into either 10.14, 10.15 or Big Sur and drag-and-drop (or Cmd+C, or right-click 'Copy') a copy of ‘Assets.car’ file from ‘BigSur/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks⁩/⁨IconFoundation.framework⁩/Versions/A/Resources’ in to a working folder you can easily negotiate to. Keep this file as your untouched 'master' copy. Note: replace 'BigSur' with the name of your BS system volume.

Comment: you will have to do this from Big Sur if you haven’t ‘unsealed’ that OS when it was installed - as the Big Sur system volume will be encrypted and won’t show up or mount under 10.14 or 10.15 - only the BS user Data volume will. If BS 'is' unsealed, then you have the option of using any of the OS's to grab a copy of the file.

2a. If you are going to edit on 10.14, download the original ‘ThemeEngine.app’ from: https://github.com/alexzielenski/ThemeEngine/releases/tag/1.0.0(111). This version doesn’t work on Big Sur or Catalina.

2b. If you are going to edit on 10.15, download a newly built version for Catalina (great thanks to Allan Nyholm/macrumors member #65816) from: https://www.dropbox.com/s/911ao8l1g480c7a/ThemeEngine 2 for 10.15.zip?dl=0 (quit the sign up/login window and just do to Direct Download). This version doesn’t work on Big Sur or Mojave.

2c. If you are going to edit on 11.0.1 or later, Jeremy Legendre has ported ThemeEngine to run on BS (https://github.com/jslegendre/ThemeEngine - v1.0.0(114)). This version doesn’t work on Mojave or Catalina (it launches but crashes when opening a file).

- then boot into whichever macOS your ThemeEngine.app is designed to run on and open the Assets.car file [where-ever it was saved to] with that App.

3a. Modify ‘Folder’ and ‘FolderDark’ items (from the left side list). There are 10 icons to replace in each category (sizes are 16x16.png, 16x16x2x.png, 32x32.png, 32x32x2x.png, 128x128.png, 128x128x2x.png, 256x256.png, 256x256x2x.png, 512x512.png, 512x512x2x.png). You 'may' be able to use the same icons for each category if the regular 'Light' mode ones aren't too bright looking in the OS's 'Dark' mode.

Create a set of correctly sized PNG files based on your own 'master' folder image. If you don't wish to create the 10-20 variants one at a time, there are apps or on-line websites which can take your base 1-2 image(s), regardless of size or resolution (although it should ideally be at least 1024x1024x72ppi), and produce the set for you. A good app is Image2Icon - available for free from the AppStore (the paid advanced features aren’t required). Export to ‘Iconset’. Just make sure that your source image for the generic folder template has an alpha layer added. For me, I replaced each icon with images from 10.9’s CoreTypes.bundle ’GenericFolderIcon.icns’ file, using TIFF's for each size dragged to the desktop out of Preview’s left pane):

- click on one of the 10 icons, taking note of the particular size (of the selected icon) showing in the top right corner (as the set is ‘not’ usually displayed in size order).
- drag and drop a ‘like for like’ sized PNG icon on top of the highlighted icon.
- continue to do this for each of the other Folder and FolderDark icons.
- use ‘Save As…’ to save the modified Assets.car file to the Big Sur Desktop. Keep the two files in separate locations, so that the modified one doesn't overwrite the 'master' copy.

4. Instructions from here now altered on 24th Nov 2020, in order to simplify the final process even further. If you don't clear the icon cache files or rebuild the kc collections on the Preboot volume or add a new snapshot at the end, you will not see any change after moving the modified Assets.car file into the system folder.

NB. in the following, replace 'BigSur' with the name of your BS system volume, replace 'username' with your Home folder's name, replace 'BigSur - Data' with the name of your BS data volume. Remember that spaces in file, folder or volume names require a backslash to be added before the space eg. 'BigSur\ -\ Data'.

-> Boot into Recovery mode and use the Terminal:

diskutil mount /Volumes/BigSur

mount -uw /Volumes/BigSur

mv /Volumes/BigSur/Users/username/Desktop/Assets.car /Volumes/BigSur/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks⁩/⁨IconFoundation.framework⁩/Versions/A/Resources/Assets.car

find /Volumes/BigSur\ -\ Data/private/var/folders/ -name 'com.apple.dock.iconcache' -exec rm {} \;

rm -r /Volumes/BigSur\ -\ Data/Library/Caches/com.apple.iconservices.store

kmutil install --volume-root /Volumes/BigSur --update-all --force

/Volumes/BigSur/usr/sbin/kcditto

bless --folder /Volumes/BigSur/System/Library/CoreServices --bootefi --create-snapshot

reboot

5. Boot back into Big Sur to (hopefully) see the folder changes!!!

———————————
Font glyph footnotes:
In early Beta versions of BS, I found the light blue font glyphs (placed in the middle of the background template folder) in several places - not in the SF Symbols.ttf, which is the 'official' source file, but - in SF Pro.ttf [Applications folder glyph #100424, Utilities #10090B, Library #100929, Home #10039F, Documents #100237, Desktop #1008F0, Movies #1003B6, Music #100469 and Pictures #1003C5]. Strangely, the Users folder glyph wasn't in the SF Pro font. I found it in the SF Display Regular font (#10026E). The Downloads folder glyph wasn't in the Pro font either - and I still haven’t found it in any other font yet. The System folder glyph (‘macOS’) isn’t in a font either, as far as I could see, but I did find it in the file: /System/Library/CoreServices/CoreTypes.bundle/Contents/Resources/Assets.car under ‘macOSText’. Whether editing any of the above-mentioned font glyphs with a font editor will change the light blue imprints to something else is for someone else to try. The system is already 'dynamically' changing all of them from grey-scale source images to blue in colour. [UPDATE: in later Beta versions and in the final 11.0.1 release, I can't find any of the above-mentioned fonts anywhere, so I'm utterly perplexed as to where the glyphs are. I've delved inside ALL of the system's Assets.car files and used Find apps to search all containers and invisible folders and still can't find any obvious file. If any developer does know the location of these glyphs, I'd be fascinated to find out...before I go even more stir-crazy looking for them (purely out of curiosity).]

 

[borp99]

Does anyone know of a working method to change system icons on Big Sur, and then reenabling SIP after this is done? It seems like the old method of disabling SIP isn't enough since Catalina. See here for more information about the new protections.

[posting deleted / duplicate of above instructions]

 

[SweetCakeCraft]

UPDATE - changing the SystemVersionCompat.plist from 10.16 to 10.15 does allow LiteIcon 4.1 to launch and it *does* in fact change any 'drag and drop' app icons after the auto cache clear and log back in. The trash can icons can be changed as well but not the Finder icon. I didn't test all of the other icon categories, like document files...but the system folder icons (I so wanted to change) *are* in fact replaced by LiteIcon, contrary to my previous posting, but the changes for those currently don't get applied. I'll keep looking for ways to make this work and report back if I find out how.

Is there any risks doing that? I though that changing the Litecon info.plist to 10.16 would do the trick, but it says it can't be opened

 

[allan.nyholm]

@borp99 great explaination. Thank you.
You can get ThemeEngine to work on macOS Catalina if you build from source available on GitHub - just remove whatever developer ID there might be.

That's my experience anyway.

If we're lucky then the colors of the glyphs can be changed using also ThemeEngine in the Font section - there's a whole lot to go through and one color change might have a hand in another element in the OS depending on which .car file is edited.

Lastly.
I would encourage anyone here to please support the author of ThemeEngine, Alex Zielenski - if we are to see any more updates to ThemeEngine and to have it work on even more modern macOS like Big Sur. As I see him as a friend and is in frequent dialog with him I have taken this upon me, being where he is not and championing his work. Mousecape too of course(although unrelated to this thread)

Reach on GitHub or via e-mail. I think he'd be surprised that there's more people using it than perhaps known to him.

 

[borp99]

Is there any risks doing that? I though that changing the Litecon info.plist to 10.16 would do the trick, but it says it can't be opened

I tried to go through the LiteIcon internal files and changed every reference from 10.15 to 10.16 but it didn't work at all and just won't launch. There is no IconData_10.16.plist inside the app, anyway. I've asked the LiteIcon developer (who actually steered me in the direction of knowing about the ThemeEngine app) if they are interested in updating the App to run on Big Sur but their response was fairly moot. I doubt that they will even try until the proper retail release of the OS around September, or after the usual slew of updates to fix the bugs not already ironed out in the beta and final pre-release testing phase. That said, I think that, as most mac users will have no idea how to install Big Sur without automatic encryption of the system disk, which in practical terms prevents any modification [which 'is' Apple's goal anyway - to isolate it from hackers, viruses and 'tickerers' ;-)], it's very unlikely that LiteIcon will gain back all of its functionality. You can still modify individual app icons and folder icons yourself using simpler methods but, for me, it was LiteIcon's ability to change the system-wide look of folders, so you didn't have to change each of the 100's/1000's? of them one at a time, that was its real strength.

So, to wrap up, you 'can' take the punt and change the SystemVersionCompat,plist with a text editor and change the string from 10.16 to 10.15 to get LiteIcon to launch and change 'some' things in Big Sur's GUI (but not 'Folders'), but if you want to change the look of the system-wide folders, you can now only do this by replacing the Assets.car file with a modified one, as mentioned in my detailed previous post.

 

[borp99]

@borp99 great explaination. Thank you.
You can get ThemeEngine to work on macOS Catalina if you build from source available on GitHub - just remove whatever developer ID there might be.

That's my experience anyway.

If we're lucky then the colors of the glyphs can be changed using also ThemeEngine in the Font section - there's a whole lot to go through and one color change might have a hand in another element in the OS depending on which .car file is edited.

Lastly.
I would encourage anyone here to please support the author of ThemeEngine, Alex Zielenski - if we are to see any more updates to ThemeEngine and to have it work on even more modern macOS like Big Sur. As I see him as a friend and is in frequent dialog with him I have taken this upon me, being where he is not and championing his work. Mousecape too of course(although unrelated to this thread)

Reach on GitHub or via e-mail. I think he'd be surprised that there's more people using it than perhaps known to him.

Fantastic Allan. I'm pretty lousy at compiling source code into apps, so getting ThemeEngine to run on Catalina or Big Sur was just a bit beyond my knowledge at the moment. However, I do understand that a lot of mac users don't keep functional partitions running or updated with previous OS's as I do (10.6.8, 10.9.5, 10.14.6, 10.15.6, 11.0b and Win10 [aargh]), so it would be great to be able to download a new version which bridges the gap from 2011 to 2020. Best wishes!! Great idea to thank and encourage Alex anew.

 

[allan.nyholm]

Fantastic Allan. I'm pretty lousy at compiling source code into apps, so getting ThemeEngine to run on Catalina or Big Sur was just a bit beyond my knowledge at the moment. However, I do understand that a lot of mac users don't keep functional partitions running or updated with previous OS's as I do (10.6.8, 10.9.5, 10.14.6, 10.15.6, 11.0b and Win10 [aargh]), so it would be great to be able to download a new version which bridges the gap from 2011 to 2020. Best wishes!! Great idea to thank and encourage Alex anew.

This is a recent ThemeEngine built from the source with latest fixes, to scroll etc, on my Mac running macOS Catalina for those wanting to try

Works here, but try yourself. Might work on Big Sur. I can't confirm that myself currently until there's a public beta of Big Sur.

 

[borp99]

This is a recent ThemeEngine built from the source with latest fixes, to scroll etc, on my Mac running macOS Catalina for those wanting to try

Works here, but try yourself. Might work on Big Sur. I can't confirm that myself currently until there's a public beta of Big Sur.

Your compiled app works on my Catalina too. I was busy downloading Xcode and MacPorts to give it a try myself but will happily defer to your offered download.

As I have 11.0b3 installed, I'll check if it's OK on Big Sur...so far. [UPDATE - I'm afraid it launches on BSb3 but crashes trying to open the Assets.car file]

I'll update my Instructions post to suit. At least others can now do the modifying work on Catalina and don't need Mojave available.

 

[allan.nyholm]

@borp99 As you might be aware of, the author of LiteIcon has a disclaimer and announcement of the page for LiteIcon
NOTE: An update is being worked on for macOS Big Sur. Please be aware that replacing system folder icons won't be possible anymore.

 

[SweetCakeCraft]

@borp99 As you might be aware of, the author of LiteIcon has a disclaimer and announcement of the page for LiteIcon
NOTE: An update is being worked on for macOS Big Sur. Please be aware that replacing system folder icons won't be possible anymore.

I've seen that! But does that mean the changing screenshots, preferences, finder and other system apps would not be possible? or it is just for the folders?

 

[allan.nyholm]

I've seen that! But does that mean the changing screenshots, preferences, finder and other system apps would not be possible? or it is just for the folders?

From what I've read in this thread I think the Folders and Drives changing might also go away. Applications could be there still - I hope there's tools and actual programs that would take over from LiteIcon on the stuff that seems more in depth changing. I can't wait to get going with macOS 11 Big Sur.

 

[borp99]

From what I've read in this thread I think the Folders and Drives changing might also go away. Applications could be there still - I hope there's tools and actual programs that would take over from LiteIcon on the stuff that seems more in depth changing. I can't wait to get going with macOS 11 Big Sur.

I just tested LiteIcon 4.1 on BSb3 (using my method of changing the SystemVersionCompat.plist string) and it does let you change the icons of Applications ('even' Apple ones like Safari) and Drives(/Volumes). I personally don't see much benefit in altering the few icons in the Dock or Others categories. One presumes that LiteIcon can be reritten* to run on BS without any further system file modification. BTW, always back up the original SystemVersionCompat.plist (by sudo mv /Volumes/11.0/System/Library/CoreServices/SystemVersionCompat.plist /Volumes/11.0/System/Library/CoreServices/SystemVersionCompat.plist.backup) before copying in a changed copy).

*When I was messaging the LiteIcon developer, they were running Big Sur on Parallels, so I'm sure that means that they are testing on a sealed system volume (as you can't do any tricks during the install process on a VM to make the system unsealed). As I've been testing LiteIcon on my real-hardware unsealed set-up, it's possible that what I've managed to just achieve (changing Application and Drive icons) may not be possible for LiteIcon to ultimately achieve. As previously mentioned in another post, Apple is doing all it can to lock out any modifications to future OS's - for good cybernet reasons, but this may eventually limit or prevent any or all customisation. It's only diehard forum members who refuse to take 'no' for an answer and try all means to garner back some control on the hardware and software they reasonably want a worthwhile lifespan of use out of.

 

[allan.nyholm]

I just tested LiteIcon 4.1 on BSb3 (using my method of changing the SystemVersionCompat.plist string) and it does let you change the icons of Applications ('even' Apple ones like Safari) and Drives(/Volumes). I personally don't see much benefit in altering the few icons in the Dock or Others categories. One presumes that LiteIcon can be reritten* to run on BS without any further system file modification. BTW, always back up the original SystemVersionCompat.plist (by sudo mv /Volumes/11.0/System/Library/CoreServices/SystemVersionCompat.plist /Volumes/11.0/System/Library/CoreServices/SystemVersionCompat.plist.backup) before copying in a changed copy).

*When I was messaging the LiteIcon developer, they were running Big Sur on Parallels, so I'm sure that means that they are testing on a sealed system volume (as you can't do any tricks during the install process on a VM to make the system unsealed). As I've been tested LiteIcon on my real-hardware unsealed set-up, it's possible that what I've managed to just achieve (changing Application and Drive icons) may not be possible for LiteIcon to ultimately achieve. As previously mentioned in another post, Apple is doing all it can to lock out any modifications to future OS's - for good cybernet reasons, but this may eventually limit or prevent any or all customisation. It's only diehard forum members who refuse to take 'no' for an answer and try all means to garner back some control on the hardware and software they reasonably want a worthwhile lifespan of use out of.

Thank you for that write up - also the latter explanations.

I mentioned drive icons only because I've read a thread on here that a user has issues getting drive icons to change. Seems that the hidden .VolumeIcon.icns really does hides away deep in the trenches of the systemdrive and LiteIcon can't get to it properly for instance. After reading that thread I came to the conclusion that there was something about that issue in that particular thread.
I've personally tried on my system boot drive with macOS Catalina that an error would come up saying something like(but not quite) "hey, you go travel because this icon will never change in a million years"

Great if such things are still available to us - perhaps it's all for the best anyway - with the folder icons I mean. I think Apple had an eyeopener with the (APE)Application Enhancer Framework from back in the day - that there was some users borking their installs. I know that icons can only hurt so much. But, appears that Apple only wants a change of wallpaper and an accent color to be the customization. Mousecape is supposedly still working on Big Sur so there's that.

I guess that there's more to life that customizing the OS - however, I have yet to discover what that is.

 

[Taz Mangus]

I've personally tried on my system boot drive with macOS Catalina that an error would come up saying something like(but not quite) "hey, you go travel because this icon will never change in a million years"

Do you have FileVault turned on for Catalina? I don’t use FileVault and not had any issue changing the boot drive icon in Catalina.

 

[allan.nyholm]

Do you have FileVault turned on for Catalina? I don’t use FileVault and not had any issue changing the boot drive icon in Catalina.

I don't have FileVault turned on. This is the result. I also didn't use the "mount -uw /" command. System Integrity Protection is disabled. Here I used a .icns dragged over.
If I don't use LiteIcon and manually change the .VolumeIcon by using the terminal and the 'cp' command then no issues.

 

[Taz Mangus]

I don't have FileVault turned on. This is the result. I also didn't use the "mount -uw /" command. System Integrity Protection is disabled. Here I used a .icns dragged over.
If I don't use LiteIcon and manually change the .VolumeIcon by using the terminal and the 'cp' command then no issues.
View attachment 939944

I use command-key I-key, copy and paste icon in finder info window.

 

[allan.nyholm]

I use command-key I-key, copy and paste icon in finder info window.

That worked. The old classic way. I appreciate that help. I bet you also gave out that help in a different thread I participated in.

 

[Taz Mangus]

That worked. The old classic way. I appreciate that help. I bet you also gave out that help in a different thread I participated in.

So does that method work in Big Sur?

 

[allan.nyholm]

So does that method work in Big Sur?

I can't say, I don't have Big Sur installed as of yet. I could sign up for the public beta and use the 'seedutil' command to change to the developer seed in order to obtain Big Sur. I'm just going to wait. The seedutil command does work as I've tried. I'm just going to wait a bit longer before doing anything related to macOS 11.

Edit... or maybe it is an actual thing I could do today.. I have the hours to spare. The choices..

 

[SweetCakeCraft]

I just tested LiteIcon 4.1 on BSb3 (using my method of changing the SystemVersionCompat.plist string) and it does let you change the icons of Applications ('even' Apple ones like Safari) and Drives(/Volumes). I personally don't see much benefit in altering the few icons in the Dock or Others categories. One presumes that LiteIcon can be reritten* to run on BS without any further system file modification. BTW, always back up the original SystemVersionCompat.plist (by sudo mv /Volumes/11.0/System/Library/CoreServices/SystemVersionCompat.plist /Volumes/11.0/System/Library/CoreServices/SystemVersionCompat.plist.backup) before copying in a changed copy).

*When I was messaging the LiteIcon developer, they were running Big Sur on Parallels, so I'm sure that means that they are testing on a sealed system volume (as you can't do any tricks during the install process on a VM to make the system unsealed). As I've been testing LiteIcon on my real-hardware unsealed set-up, it's possible that what I've managed to just achieve (changing Application and Drive icons) may not be possible for LiteIcon to ultimately achieve. As previously mentioned in another post, Apple is doing all it can to lock out any modifications to future OS's - for good cybernet reasons, but this may eventually limit or prevent any or all customisation. It's only diehard forum members who refuse to take 'no' for an answer and try all means to garner back some control on the hardware and software they reasonably want a worthwhile lifespan of use out of.

I was thinking, if we login in as a root user, would that give us access to the resources folder of programs? Because that way we could replace the icon files (after making a backup, obviously).

 

[borp99]

I just tested LiteIcon 4.1 on BSb3 (using my method of changing the SystemVersionCompat.plist string) and it does let you change the icons of Applications ('even' Apple ones like Safari) and Drives(/Volumes). I personally don't see much benefit in altering the few icons in the Dock or Others categories. One presumes that LiteIcon can be reritten* to run on BS without any further system file modification. BTW, always back up the original SystemVersionCompat.plist (by sudo mv /Volumes/11.0/System/Library/CoreServices/SystemVersionCompat.plist /Volumes/11.0/System/Library/CoreServices/SystemVersionCompat.plist.backup) before copying in a changed copy).

*When I was messaging the LiteIcon developer, they were running Big Sur on Parallels, so I'm sure that means that they are testing on a sealed system volume (as you can't do any tricks during the install process on a VM to make the system unsealed). As I've been testing LiteIcon on my real-hardware unsealed set-up, it's possible that what I've managed to just achieve (changing Application and Drive icons) may not be possible for LiteIcon to ultimately achieve. As previously mentioned in another post, Apple is doing all it can to lock out any modifications to future OS's - for good cybernet reasons, but this may eventually limit or prevent any or all customisation. It's only diehard forum members who refuse to take 'no' for an answer and try all means to garner back some control on the hardware and software they reasonably want a worthwhile lifespan of use out of.

Hmm, is Apple reading these forums? I just updated to Big Sur beta 4 and LiteIcon can no longer launch if the SystemVersionCompat.plist string is altered from 10.16 to 10.15. It did under BSb3.

So that now just leaves the 'old classic way' to change App and Drive icons one at a time and my suggested method for modifying the Assets.car file inside the IconsetResources.bundle file to change the look of the system-wide generic/template folder.