Easy way to change dock icons in El Capitan?

Using safe web browsing practices will keep you safe from those threats, which exist whether SIP is on or not. Therefore I say leave it off if it's preventing you from doing something you want. That's what I've done, as I find it intrusive.

Browsing is not the only source of possible infection. It will depend on the way we are using our Macs, but I receive many, many emails with attachments, that I have to open, where I cannot besure, if the sender has been as careful as I am myself.

It is bad enough that I have to disable the gate keeper temporarily, to be able to run my own programs ad the programs my students are writing. If I should forget that gatekeeper is off when I have to open email attachments, the SIP could prevent software from installing in sytem folders.

Well, we shall have to agree to disagree.

FWIW, changing system installed folder icons hasn't been available for a couple of OS versions (can't remember if it was ML or Mavericks when I first noticed it). And, as an example, you can easily change the appearance of the Applications folder icon by putting an empty folder with a colorful icon of your choice inside the App folder with a name beginning with a 0 or 1 (so it shows first) - that folder always displays the first app entry in the App folder, so you can change that without having to mess with the system. As well, SIP may not be perfect, but it makes perfect sense for an average user keeping them safe by not allowing certain installs.

or you'd have to inadvertently download something

That is not entirely correct. MacKeeper hacked into my (web) Yahoo account (inbox); when I returned to that tab to check my mail, it took over Firefox and redirected me to a Russian website while proclaiming that I had 8,964 viruses on my Mac and the only way to get rid of them is to enter my credit card info below. This was before you were able to NOT have previous windows automatically re-open (it was a shortlived feature of Lion which was quickly discontinued in ML after many explicit bug reports were sent in), so every time I quit FF and re-launched it, the same page loaded again and again. The only way out was to yank the modem cable out of the wall and then do a complete erase and install. So, you can have a problem without downloading something - not saying that SIP would have prevented that, I'll go for all available safety (and the resulting privacy) any day over being able to change a folder icon. I wouldn't call that "preventing me from doing something I want" - it simply isn't important enough to disable a safety feature.

you can easily change the appearance of the Applications folder icon by putting an empty folder with a colorful icon of your choice inside the App folder with a name beginning with a 0 or 1 (so it shows first) - that folder always displays the first app entry in the App folder, so you can change that without having to mess with the system.

Interesting discussion, and good to hear that this change in El Capitan is a known "feature" and not just something weird that I noticed after the change. This technique is a handy work-around. I initially found it here: how to change aplication folder icon in dock?

Thanks

Here is how my Applications folder shows in the dock:

And here is how it shows in a Finder window > Column View:

I changed the folder icon of the Adobe Bridge app; however, I failed to realize that the first item in there apparently has a white background, so when I have time, I may change that so the red folder doesn't have a white background at the top.

I found a way of changing the icons on just my dock without changing any settings. First I held down command and L while dragging the app (such as safari) from my dock to my desktop. I then opened my user folder- applications (for me it is empty ) then I moved the apps I put on the desktop to that folder. It would now let me change the icons as usual before the El Capitan update and I switched them out for the old dock apps. Hope this helps !

Nice, that works. But now you have duplicates of all applications in your Home > Applications folder and have to remember to update them, when you update the system.

Not sure I understand what you are saying. If you move an app icon (which is nothing more than an alias of the real thing) from the dock onto your desktop, it usually goes "poof" in a cloud of smoke and disappears. There is no way I know of to do that differently. And, if you did succeed moving them, then you simply moved the aliases - there are no "real" or actual apps in your dock (of any app that is in your Applications folder) - they are all just an alias pointing to the real thing for one click access. As well, applications need to be in the Applications folder as that is where the OS looks for them for updates, so if you moved any to your User folder and the originals are no longer where they should be, then this app would never be updated.

Hi I was having the same problem too before but with trial and error I managed to edit the folder icons of my newly updated mac OS, its simple actually,

1. select info of the folder you want to change the icon

2. select the icon you want to use

3 drag and drop it to the upper left of the info of the folder you want to change the icon, you will see a green+ upon pasting it and its all done!

hope i was able to you guys!

You still can change folder icons in your home folder this way in El Capitan, but TJNJenkins wants to change the icons of the system installed applications in the Applications folder. The system installed applications are protected by the system integrity protection and it is not possible to paste different icons into these applications to change the application icon, not while they are in the main Applications folder.

You can only change the icon of a copy of the system applications in your own Applications folder in the Home folder.

This way I could create a version of Mail with an icon of my choice.

It would have been real nice if they would have told us somehow instead of having us find it online after trying and searching. :/

Hi,

The only easy solution I found was to duplicate the safari app in the apps folder and then paste the icon image to it as you had done before. After that you can drag it to your dock and delete the original from the dock.

Hope you like the solution. Let me know if it works for you.

The dock folder icon is taken from the first item in an alphabetical list of its contents. When the one you want isn't the first in the list change its name to begin with a space character. It then is moved to the top of the list and its icon is used on the dock folder. eg. here's my Video Live dock folder. I want the most used to appear at the top.

Great idea - I suggested that 10 months ago.