Mac Icon Set Download

| 29-03-2021
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This article provides information on the following topics:

  1. Mac Icon Set Download Link
  2. Icons For Mac
  3. Free Mac Os Icons
  4. Mac Os Icons
  5. Free Mac Icons Download
  6. Mac Icons Free
  7. Mac Desktop Icons

• What are the differences between Windows® and Macintosh® icons?

When it comes to icons, web designers and graphic artists have an excellent opportunity to showcase their craft, prove their experience and explore their creativity. A sweet, nice icon set is a perfect showcase of designer’s work and a powerful instrument to build up your reputation online. In fact, designers make use of it, creating absolutely amazing icon sets and offering them for free. Download Icon Set Creator for macOS 10.11 or later and enjoy it on your Mac. ‎Icon Set Creator lets you quickly create icon assets for your apps: Just drag your high-resolution artwork (preferably, a PNG file at 1024x1024) into the app's window, chose the target platform, select a directory for exporting the results, and you're set.

• Image formats included in Macintosh® icons

• Various Macintosh® file types

• Transfer an icon between Windows® OS and Macintosh® OS

• The 256x256 PNG-compressed icon format for Windows Vista

• The 768x768 PNG-compressed icon format for Windows 10

• The 256x256 icon format for OSX Tiger (10.4)

• The 512x512 icon format for OSX Leopard (10.5)

• The 1024x1024 icon format for OSX Lion (10.7)

What are the differences between Windows® and Macintosh® icons?

Microsoft Windows® and Apple Macintosh® icons are very similar. They both have several image formats embedded in the same icon. But the file format is totally different. You cannotuse Macintosh® icons as is under Windows®. The file format is not compatible. You must convert them to Windows® ICO file format (with Axialis IconWorkshop™ of course!). This is the same under Macintosh® OS which cannot read Windows® icon files.

Axialis IconWorkshop™ supports the following Macintosh® icon files:ICNS, RSC and BIN. You can easily open them into the Icon Editor and save them as Windows® ICO format.During this operation, we recommend you to remove special Macintosh® formats which are useless under Windows®. You can also read a Windows® icon and save it as Macintosh® format.

Recommended image formats embedded in icons are slightly different in Windows® and Macintosh®. See the comparison tables below:

Some image formats are unavailable in Macintosh® icon specifications. Therefore IconWorkshop™won't event permit you to create them. If you try to save or convert a Windows® icon to Macintosh®, some format will be removed. Note that all image formats can be created in Windows® icons, even custom formats not listed above.

Image formats included in Macintosh® icons

Only a limited list of image formats are available in Macintosh® icons (no other or intermediate formats can be defined):

Macintosh® OSX

• Recommended: 128x128 (RGB/A), 48x48 (RGB/A, 256 colors, 16 colors), 32x32 (RGB/A, 256 colors, 16 colors, mono), 16x16 (RGB/A, 256 colors, 16 colors).

Icons For Mac

• Minimum:48x48 (RGB/A, 256 colors), 32x32 (RGB/A, 256 colors), 16x16 (RGB/A, 256 colors).

Macintosh® OSX 10.4 Tiger

• Recommended: 256x256 (RGB/A), 128x128 (RGB/A), 48x48 (RGB/A, 256 colors, 16 colors), 32x32 (RGB/A, 256 colors, 16 colors, mono), 16x16 (RGB/A, 256 colors, 16 colors).

Free Mac Os Icons

• Minimum:128x128 (RGB/A), 48x48 (RGB/A, 256 colors), 32x32 (RGB/A, 256 colors), 16x16 (RGB/A, 256 colors).

Macintosh® OSX 10.5 Leopard

• Recommended: 256x256 (RGB/A), 128x128 (RGB/A), 48x48 (RGB/A, 256 colors, 16 colors), 32x32 (RGB/A, 256 colors, 16 colors, mono), 16x16 (RGB/A, 256 colors, 16 colors).

• Minimum:128x128 (RGB/A), 48x48 (RGB/A, 256 colors), 32x32 (RGB/A, 256 colors), 16x16 (RGB/A, 256 colors).

• Optional:512x512 (RGB/A).

The 32x32 Monochrome format is recommended for Macintosh®icons to ensure display compatibility on old Macintosh®systems with B/W screens.

Various Macintosh file types

Macintosh® icons can be saved using two different file formats: 'ICNS' and 'RSC' (or 'RSRC' is used). A third format MacBinary 'BIN' is used for transfer purpose between Windows® and Macintosh®.

  • ICNS - This is the standard Macintosh® icon file format. Only one icon (with several formats) can be saved in this format. This format is the most commonly used.

  • RSC or RSRC - This is the Macintosh®resource file format. It is used mainly by developers. This format can contain several icons. Axialis IconWorkshopä support reading of RSC files with several icons but can write only RSC files with one icon.

  • BIN - MacBinary format. This format permits to easily transfer files between Macintosh® and Windows®. For more information on this format, visit this website: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacBinary.

We strongly recommend to use this file format to transfer your icons to Macintosh® because it is compatible with Macintosh® file system which separate each file in two parts called 'forks': The data fork and the resource fork. The data fork contains the data included in the file (a text file for example). The resource fork contains the image or icon which permits to display it on screen. See below for more information on transfer from Windows® to Macintosh®.

Transfer an icon between Windows® OS and Macintosh® OS

Mac Os Icons

To transfer and icon between Windows® and Macintosh®, the easiest method is to use the MacBinary format. This format permits to generate an icon compatible with the Macintosh® OS forks.

The MacBinary format permits to merge the 2 forks in one file handy for transfer, mail attachment or Web publishing. When IconWorkshopä saves an icon in MacBinary format, it writes the icon in the resource fork. The data fork is left empty. As a result, as soon as you receive or see the file in Macintosh®, the icon appears automatically. Then, you can handle it using the standard Finder/MacOS user interface.

The 256x256 PNG-compressed icon format for Windows Vista

For reasons of compatibility with hi-res screens, Microsoft Windows Vista introduced a new format of icons supporting PNG compression and sizes up to 256x256.

Axialis IconWorkshop can create PNG-compressed Windows icons up to 256x256. To read more about Windows Vista™ icons and how to create them using Axialis IconWorkshop, read this article: 'Introducing Windows Vista Icons'.

The 768x768 PNG-compressed icon format for Windows 10

For the same reason of compatibility with Hi-DPI screens, Microsoft included icons with larger image size (768x768) in the developer preview of Windows 10. But in the final Windows 10 build the large image size was removed from the icons.

We decided to keep this image format in IconWorkshop for compatibility if the format is enabled to a future update. We also added the 512x512 format. Both are PNG-Compressed.

The 256x256 icon format for OSX Tiger (10.4)

The new Macintosh® OS version 10.4 (Tiger) introduces a new icon format which permits to create 256x256 icons. In the upcoming months a new generation of flat LCD displays will have much higher resolutions. The screens won't be larger but the number of pixels per inch (DPI) will increase. This will result in smaller items on screen including icons. To compensate this effect, Apple has planned to create a new resolution-independent user interface and the ability to display icons with higher definition in Tiger.

This format is highly compressed and permits to create large 256x256 icons using less than 100 KB. The compression is based on JPEG 2000. This format is similar to JPEG but can include a transparency channel (Alpha Channel). However, JPEG 2000 has an additional option which permits to compress the image without quality loss (unlike JPEG which 'destructs' the original image to increase the compression ratio). In OS-X 10.4 icons, the icons are compressed using this lossless method, keeping the original image quality. The resulting compression ratio is about 1:2 (similar to PNG).

Keep in mind that a 256x256 icon is 28 times the size of a 48x48 icon! It will change deeply the way you'll create icons in the future. But be sure we'll add many features to help you in future versions. To get an idea of things to come, see an icon snapshot comparing sizes from 256x256 to 16x16:

The 512x512 icon format for OSX Leopard (10.5)

OSX version 10.5 (Leopard) introduces an extra large icon format which permits displaying 512x512 icons on Hi-DPI screens. This format uses the same compression format as 256x256 format for Tiger (see above).

A 512x512 icon is 4 times the size of a 256x256 icon and 114 times the size of a 48x48 icon! Keep this in mind when you're designing the image. The 512x512 image can be complex with a high level of details. To get a better idea, see an icon snapshot comparing sizes between 512x512 and 256x256 image formats:

The 1024x1024 icon format for OSX Lion (10.7)

OSX version 10.7 (Lion) introduces an extra large icon format which permits displaying 1024x1024 icons on Hi-DPI screens. This format uses the same compression format as 256x256 format for Tiger (see above). However, it can be compressed as PNG as well.

After a few hours of work, a Finder window in icon mode can look something like a teenager’s room: stuff strewn all over the place, as demonstrated with the Applications folder in Figure 1.

Figure 1: Will someone please clean up this mess?

To restore order to your Desktop, click in any open area of the active window and then choose View –> Clean Up. This command leaves the icons in approximately the same position but snaps them to an invisible grid so that they’re aligned, as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2: Tidying up is no problem with the Clean Up menu command.

After things are in alignment, work with the icon view options. (Naturally, you’ll want the active Finder window in icon view first, so choose View –> As Icons or press COMMAND+1.) From the Finder menu, choose View –> Show View Options — or press that swingin’ COMMAND+J shortcut — to display the View Options dialog box that you see in Figure 3. (Remember that these options are the ones available for icon view.)

Figure 3: The settings available for icon view.

Note these first two radio buttons, which also appear in the list View Options dialog box:

  • This Window Only: Select the This Window Only radio button to apply the changes that you make only to the Finder window that opens when you open the selected item — in other words, the item that appears in the window’s title bar.
    For example, any changes made to the settings in Figure 3 will affect only the Applications folder because it was the active Finder window when you pressed COMMAND+ J. (You may have noticed that the window name also appears as the title of the View Options dialog box.)
  • All Windows: Select the All Windows radio button to apply the changes that you make to all Finder windows that you view in your current mode.

Of course, Mac OS X remembers the changes that you make within the View Options dialog box, no matter which view mode you’re configuring. You can also make other changes from this dialog box, including

  • Resizing your Desktop icons: Click and drag the Icon Size slider to shrink or expand the icons on your Desktop. The icon size is displayed in pixels above the slider.
  • Resizing icon label text: Click the up and down arrows to the right of the Text Size drop-down box to choose the font size (in points) for icon labels.
  • Moving icon label text: Select either the Bottom (default) or the Right radio button to choose between displaying the text under your Desktop icons or to the right of the icons.

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  • Snap to Grid: Enable this check box to automatically align icons to a grid within the window, just as if you had used the Clean Up menu command.
  • Show Item Info: With this check box enabled, Mac OS X displays the number of items within each folder in the window.
  • Show Icon Preview: If you enable this check box, the Finder displays icons for image files using a miniature of the actual picture. (A cool feature for those with digital cameras — however, showing a preview does take extra processing time because Mac OS X has to load each image file and shrink it down to create the icon.)
  • Keep Arranged By: To sort the display of icons in a window, enable this check box and choose one of the following criteria from its drop-down list: by name, date modified, date created, size, or item type.
  • Choosing a background: To select a background for the window, select one of three radio buttons here:

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• White: This is the default.

• Color: Click a color choice from the color block that appears if you make this selection.

Icons

Mac Desktop Icons

• Picture: Select this radio button and then click the Select button to display a standard Open dialog box. Navigate to the location where the desired image is stored, click it once to select it, and then click Open.

After all your changes are made and you’re ready to return to work, click the dialog box’s Close button to save your settings.