Desktop Icon Help - I may sound real stupid here but...

[sonictonic]

...I can't seem to change the icon for my Hard Drive. I've only been a Mac user for a few months, and this is actually the first time I am going to change an icon... but I wanted to change just my hard drive icon on my desktop. (Which is why I don't see a need for some of the icon apps I have heard about like CandyBar or whatever).

I read the Apple support page on how to change it, and I have both of the "Get Info" windows open, for my HD, and for the icon I wanna use. I selected the little icon in the upper left of the get window box, it looks selected, so then I followed instructions and copied it, hoping to be able to select my HD little icon in its Get Info window, and paste it. Well, it doesn't work!

What the heck am I doin wrong? I'm embarrassed I cannot do something so simple... lol. The icon I wanna use is ends in ".icns" - does that have anything to do with this?

Thanks in advance for your help.

 

[Temujin]

Well what your doing should be right. Try copying the icon from a folder. Any folder should do it. Then use that icon as your hard drive icon. If that works, and it really should, then your custom icons should work too.

If the Folder icon works fine and your custom icons don't, well then you've got some messed up custom icons.

 

[JonD25]

You might need to be using an administrator account. If you're not an admin, then you can do it from an admin account and it will change on yours too. If you are an admin, then I'm not sure what you're doing wrong, because it sounds like you're doing everything right.

 

[dpaanlka]

I changed mine just fine. Copy the image, get info on your hard drive, then paste it on the *small* icon towards the top of the get info window.

 

[mad jew]

Well what your doing should be right. Try copying the icon from a folder. Any folder should do it. Then use that icon as your hard drive icon. If that works, and it really should, then your custom icons should work too.

If the Folder icon works fine and your custom icons don't, well then you've got some messed up custom icons.

That's a good suggestion. Also, try pasting the icon into a TextEdit document or something to see if it's been copied properly. Remember that the icon must be highlighted for it to be copied. By default it'll have a blue ring around it.

 

[sonictonic]

You might need to be using an administrator account. If you're not an admin, then you can do it from an admin account and it will change on yours too. If you are an admin, then I'm not sure what you're doing wrong, because it sounds like you're doing everything right.

Ya know what? That was it! Kinda weird though, as I thoguht of that too originally, and I went into System Prefs and changed my standard account I was logged into, to have Admin privleges, but I still wasn't able to do it. So I put it back. But, after logging out and logging into my main admin account, I was able to copy and paste the icon with no problem at all.

Thanks!

 

[GoCubsGo]

Silly question #1
I have a folder full of .icns files. I have candybar, but they don't seem to talk to each other. I did the drag and drop of the icn file and it worked, but it gave me the preview app icon because that is what the icns file is associated with.

The file I wanted to replace was under "Volumes" and it was my external HDD.

 

[d wade]

interesting. i didnt even know you could change icons w/o apps like candybar. i am going to give it a shot when i get some free time

 

[GoCubsGo]

interesting. i didnt even know you could change icons w/o apps like candybar. i am going to give it a shot when i get some free time

It's a good program, but apparently not for icns files.