Replacing the iTunes 10 Logo

Today I got iTunes 10 through Mac OS update. Beautiful though the rest of the program is, the icon is pretty hideous (see Twitter’s coverage). So, I thought, with a bit of knowledge of the layout of .app files it shouldn’t be too hard to replace it with something I like. Here’s how.

1. Download an icon you’d like to replace it with. I chose Chris Carlozzi’s but you can choose whatever you’d like
2. If you got anything other than a file ending with .icns, you’ll need to convert it. I used iConvert to do this and downloaded only the .icns version (I didn’t need the .hqx file it offers)
3. Open up your Applications folder, right click on iTunes and click “Show Package Contents”. You’re now inside the .app file
4. Open Contents -> Resources; this is where all the programs images are
5. You’ll find iTunes.icns in this folder; rename it to something else (iTunes_old.icns or something)
6. You may find Mac OS says you don’t have the privileges to do this. If this is the case, open up Terminal and type the following commands
   cd /Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/Resources/ && sudo mv iTunes.icns iTunes_old.icns
7. Copy the .icns file you downloaded in step one into this folder.
8. Right click on the file you just copied in, click Get Info and rename it to iTunes.icns
9. Open iTunes (if it’s already open close it then reopen it)

Once this is all done your dock icon (if iTunes is in your dock) should change to the new icon. Enjoy your lovely new icon! One thing; I can’t confirm whether future updates to iTunes will wipe this out, so YMMV.