How to change default alias icon

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How to change default alias icon

In Leopard, the default for any icon is 512x512, so even aliases will be 508K. This is really bad. I tried to copy and paste a previous alias icon onto the new one in Get Info, but the size doubled to 1016K. Selecting and deleting the folder icon in Get Info brought it back to 508K, but I can't seem to replace the ridiculously large icon with a smaller one.

It seems the default icon won't go away, and now I have a bunch of icons just gobbling space. Apple thinks this is a feature, but I regard it as a bug. How do I correct this problem and make aliases little pointers again?

G5, Mac OS X (10.5.2), 250Gx3 HD, 3.5G RAM

Posted on May 30, 2008 8:53 AM

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Answer 1

V.K.

Level 9

56,192 points

May 30, 2008 9:04 AM in response to Baron Dave

First, you need to find new smaller icons you want to use instead of the default ones. You can't get rid of the icons altogether but smaller icons will take less space. there are lots of places on the web with icons but I'm not sure about the sizes. Try [interfacelift|http://interfacelift.com/icons-mac/index.php?sort=ratings] or [iconfactory|http://iconfactory.com/home].
I use some custom icons which are only 60KB and they work just fine for me. I had no idea that default leopard ones take so much space.

Then use something like [candybar|http://www.panic.com/candybar> to change the system icons to the ones you like.

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Answer 2

V.K.

Level 9

56,192 points

May 30, 2008 9:29 AM in response to Baron Dave

P.S. also, i should add that you have some misunderstanding about the default icons. Unlike custom icons, default icons are not really attached to every folder. only a single copy of a default icon is kept on the disk and every new folder gets a link to it which takes an infinitesimal amount of space.

Custom icons on the other hand are attached to folders in invisible .icns files and do take space on the disk.

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Answer 3

Baron Dave Author

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May 30, 2008 10:47 AM in response to Baron Dave

I appreciate the help and the links, but I don't understand your comment on default icons. If it's a and not attached to the file, why is the file 508K?

I miss ResEdit, sometimes...

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Answer 4

V.K.

Level 9

56,192 points

May 30, 2008 10:53 AM in response to Baron Dave

are you talking about the get info screen reporting 508KB? I'm not sure but I can only guess that it adds the size of the default icon for some reason. However, it's not really there. Try making a new folder and make a bunch of new subfolders in it. the total size of the folder will still be very small.

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Answer 5

Baron Dave Author

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May 30, 2008 11:17 AM in response to Baron Dave

VK: Try this:
Make a new folder. Size: Zero K.
Make an alias of folder. Size: 508K.
On the new folder, Get Info and Copy the icon. In the alias, Paste the icon in the Get Info box. Size: 1016K. And the icon doesn't change.

That's absurd. Apple can try all it wants to claim that this is a desired feature, but they're slowly tearing apart the Finder GUI.

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Answer 6

V.K.

Level 9

56,192 points

May 30, 2008 11:30 AM in response to Baron Dave

hmm, ok I do see that except in my case the total size is 60Kb because I use custom icons. I'm not sure what the exact story is here. In any case this only affects aliases not normal folders so I don't see this as a big issue.

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Answer 7

May 30, 2008 1:11 PM in response to V.K.

Actually we already discussed this issue. See this thread (which is marked as answered):

http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=7282372#7282372

And the other two discussions I link to, one is the exact same complaint, the other is a related problem of custom icons being copied into the resource fork.
Francine

Francine
Schwieder

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Answer 8

V.K.

Level 9

56,192 points

May 30, 2008 1:20 PM in response to Francine Schwieder

interesting. thanks, Francine.
I wonder why it works this way though as it does take extra space. still, unless somebody has thousands of aliases I don't see this as an issue.

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Answer 9

maarut

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70 points

May 30, 2008 1:48 PM in response to Baron Dave

Although not an elegant solution, you could try trashing the resource fork of the alias (done by doing an "rm -f /path/to/alias/..namedfork/rsrc" in the Terminal). This will temporarily disable the alias, but you can fix it by re-selecting the original folder when you try to use it.

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Answer 10

Baron Dave Author

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May 30, 2008 1:50 PM in response to Baron Dave

Francine: The first thread was a question as to why it happens. That was answered (at the Genius Desk) and I marked it so. This thread is on how to fix the bug.

I probably have thousands of aliases on my system, a legacy of systems past. I'm not worried about the old ones, I'm worried about the new ones. I use aliases all the time, and often in use them in web design: As I'm making a picture gallery (in this case), I'll make links to the originals in the web folder. I try to clean them up before uploading to the net, but they don't affect the html and some always manage to be left behind. When small files clutter up a folder, no big deal. When an alias is larger than a jpg taken at 2megapixels, it is a big deal.

So... how do I fix the bug? I've come up with a kludge, but it's the long way around.

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Answer 11

V.K.

Level 9

56,192 points

May 30, 2008 1:55 PM in response to Baron Dave

then follow my original suggestion and change the default folder icons. as i said mine are 60KB. Even with thousands of aliases this shouldn't take that much space.

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Answer 12

Baron Dave Author

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May 30, 2008 2:07 PM in response to Baron Dave

VK: I looked at your suggestions to change the default folder icon. I may do that, if Candybar's 15-day free trial will do it. The problem is that going from 800bytes to 60K is not all that elegant a solution.

My kludge so far:
Copy an old alias, move to desired location.
In Get Info, Select New Original
change name

But I shouldn't have to do any of that. I'm looking to fix the system. Are you saying it can't be done?

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Answer 13

V.K.

Level 9

56,192 points

May 30, 2008 2:32 PM in response to Baron Dave

Baron Dave wrote:
VK: I looked at your suggestions to change the default folder icon. I may do that, if Candybar's 15-day free trial will do it. The problem is that going from 800bytes to 60K is not all that elegant a solution.

My kludge so far:
Copy an old alias, move to desired location.
In Get Info, Select New Original
change name

But I shouldn't have to do any of that. I'm looking to fix the system. Are you saying it can't be done?

I suspect not. I think the trick with changing the icons is the best you can do. I kind of agree with you in general but i suspect there are very few users who use so many aliases and Apple didn't think this would be a problem. yes, candy bar is expensive but there are some freeware alternatives.
Try [Liteicon|http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/24764/liteicon].

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Answer 14

V.K.

Level 9

56,192 points

May 30, 2008 9:06 PM in response to Baron Dave

Hi there again,
If you are still reading, I just checked and if you make a symbolic link instead of an alias, the default icon is not attached to the result! symbolic links take only 4KB regardless of the default icon size. the downside of using them is that you can't move them around like aliases and also, AFAIK, there is no GUI way to make them and they have to be created via terminal. Somebody correct me if I'm wrong on this.

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Answer 15

Baron Dave Author

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May 30, 2008 10:15 PM in response to Baron Dave

VK: Hmm... thanks. Is there a tutorial (or can you give me the commands)? I haven't played with Linux a for many years but I'm ok with Terminal... as long as I know what I'm doing.

If you can't move symbolic links, how will Time Machine remember them?

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