Extract and change file icons in Leopard

There exists an extremely easy way to manipulate icons in Leopard (and previous OS X versions too), just by using copy-paste between files and folders. Using this technique you can quickly customize your disk items, as well as extract rich graphics for further use or simply inspiration. With just a few clicks you can get these sweet looking designs in an up to 512x512 PNG file. Here’s how you do it.

Locate the application or file with the icon you want, select it and from the right-click menu select “Get Info” (or ⌘+I). Let’s use Safari as an example. You should see a similar window:

Click on the small icon in to left corner and copy it with ⌘+C.

Open “Preview” and in the “File” menu select “New From Clipboard” (or simply ⌘+N):

Each icon file contains several sizes of the same image. Choose from the sidebar the size you want to extract:

In the “File” menu select “Save as…” and select PNG format, to obtain best quality. Be sure to have the “Alpha” checkbox checked:

After these steps you should have a nice PNG image from the icon, looking for example like a 256x256 Safari logo:

Hints:

1. By copy-pasting (⌘+C, ⌘+V) icons between “Get Info” windows you can quickly change any file’s icon.
2. Look for interesting images inside applications — right-click an app, then Show Package Contents and explore the Resources folder