Back to the Future! - Change Time Machine Icon to a Delorean [Mac Tip]

When I think of time machines, images of Marty McFly, Doc Brown and Flux Capacitors come to mind. I suppose these associations were hardwired into my young brain sometime in the vicinity of 1985. So, it was quite natural that I wanted to change the icon for Mac OS X Leopard’s Time Machine application to a Delorean. You can see the end result above and read on to find out how to get your own!

Step 1 - Download the new icon file

If you also want a Delorean floating on your Dock, begin by downloading the Delorean icon package I created using this Google Code link. Keep this file in your ~/Downloads/ folder for the time being and navigate to the /Applications/ folder.

Step 2 - Locate Original Time Machine Icon

Navigate to /Applications/Time Machine/, right click on the Time Machine icon, and select ‘Show Package Contents’. Within the contents of Time Machine, navigate to Contents/Resources where you will find a file called backup.icns. This file contains the Time Machine icons. Make a backup of this file (you will need administrative privileges for this) and rename the duplicate something like backupOLD.icns, just in case you want to revert back to the future past.

Step 3 - Replace Dock’s Time Machine

Drag the Delorean icns file (it needs to be named backup.icns) from your ~/Downloads/ folder into the /Applications/Time Machine/Contents/Resources/ folder (you will need administrative privileges for this move).

Step 4 - Replace the Time Machine in the Dock

The last thing to do is remove the existing Time Machine icon from the Dock (if you have it there) and then drag a new instantiation to the Dock in its place. Enjoy! You can also find out how to easily customize other system icons here.

Update - New Folder Icon

At a reader’s request we have also created a folder icon which can be used to change the icon of any mac folder or specifically in the reader’s case the icon of time machine backup volume. You can grab the folder icon here. To change icons in this manner you simply need to right click and ‘Get Info’ on both the icon and the folder or volume to be changed. Then cmd-c the little icon in the upper left of the ‘Get Info’ panel followed by a cmd-v on the same icon for the target. More info on this process can be found here if this isn’t clear. To undo this process you simply select the target’s icon in the ‘Get Info’ panel and hit delete. Enjoy!