Getting, Adding, and Changing Google Earth Mac icons
Change the GoogleEarth Application Icon
The easiest way to customize your Mac experience when it comes to the way the applications look is to change their icons. From the Dock to the Application Switcher, your interaction with an application’s icon is immense and changing it is a good start to making the app your own. The simplest way to do this is to navigate to your Applications folder, then click on the app which you like to modify. Then press Cmd+I or right-click on the icon and select Get Info. Select the icon from the Get Info window that pops up; you’ll notice that the icon gets a blue glow around it when you do so. Copy your new icon and then just paste it over the icon when the glow is active. Easy as pie isn’t it? If you end up coming across some stubborn icons, then have a look at this article. If you have any doubts about the process I listed above, then here’s a video that will help.
What About the Icons in the Application Itself?
Not everyone is a big fan of the toolbar icons that ship with GoogleEarth by default, this includes famed designer Adam Betts. Unlike the rest of us though, he’s got the chops to do something about it. Enter his 9.3% facelift of the GoogleEarth application for the Mac. Check it out, it really does make GoogleEarth feel more Mac native while the default app seems like a port of a Windows program.
Is That All That I Can Change?
Today is your lucky day because I’m going to show you how you can change your GoogleEarth experience drastically. Customized GoogleEarth Placemarks will make sure that you remember each place that you’ve marked off the bat. Just mark something with a customized icon — maybe a large red box for where your mother-in-law lives and it is unlikely that you’ll forget what that icon stands for. If you’re interested in doing something similar for Google Maps then you should have a look at this link here which wil show you how to accomplish that. Back to GoogleEarth though, here is how we add a custom Placemarks icon to our maps.
1. Create a new Placemark by clicking on the Add Placemark button.
2. Populate all the necessary fields that you are presented with, namely the Place as well as the Description.
3. Right click the Placemarks button and in the Properties box that opens up, you can click the icon for the Placemarks and then choose to customize it. In the new panel that opens up, you can choose to pick one of the existing icons or upload one of your own. The new icon that you upload can be one that you’ve got on your hard drive or something that you pick from Google Images.
If you would like to have a look at more detailed instructions when it comes to this process, click here for a Google Doc that will show you how to do it all with pictures.
