CandyBar

One of the things I wanted to do on this blog was talk about the OSX applications I like but I've fallen down on the job. CandyBar is a favorite, it allows me to change all the system icons to anything I want, I've also downloaded a ton of premade icons from the web and made a few myself with some other nifty applications and I just found the perfect folder icon which is why I'm thinking of it.

This is a screenshot of my external hard drive. The brown, round Japanese boxes are my default folder icons, much better than those ugly light blue things. Then I've put individual icons on certain folders so they stand out. One very cool trick is I have specific icons for each of my client's folders so I can find them instantly. My comic book guy gets superhero heads, Flash, Superman, Martian Manhunter, Batman and Wonder Woman. I did use a full figure of Green Lantern just for variety, other clients just get a single icon for all their folders. All my zip and dmg files are a cool black and unknown documents are cool blue orb instead of a blank sheet of paper. Other images are my defaults for Illustrator, InDesign and Preview apps.

Now, applications that mess with your system can be dangerous but the beauty of CandyBar is it merely replaces the icons at the system level then it's turned off, so it isn't running all the time to cause problems. It doesn't have to maintain the icons just put them in once and it's done. There are times I don't even open the app for months at a time, so I've had zero problems with it. It can be downloaded for free and used up to 25 times, after which you can no longer make changes but all changes will remain if you want them. So if you get all your icons set up just right within 25 uses you never have to pay for it, but I did because I'm always changing things around.