Pimp your macOS shortcuts with system icons
I use VNC (aka Screen Share) a lot, so I keep a folder of frequently accessed machines on my Dock.
The default VNC location file icon for OS X is a bit dull. Fortunately, OS X has a folder of system icons we can use instead. Even better, this folder contains icons for all recent Macbook, iMac and Mac Pro models.
The folder can be located here; hit ⌘⇧G in Finder and paste to jump right to it:
/System/Library/CoreServices/CoreTypes.bundle/Contents/Resources
Creating a VNC shortcut file
In order to access VNC locations from the Dock, we can create a .vncloc
file. Use a text editor to paste the following into a file and save it with a name ending in .vncloc
, e.g. user-hostname.vncloc
:
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>URL</key>
<string>vnc://user@hostname.lan</string>
</dict>
</plist>
Note: you’ll need to change the vnc://user@hostname.lan
to the remote host’s details.
You can save this file wherever you like. I, for instance, keep all my VNC location shortcuts in a VNC Locations folder in Documents.
Changing the icon
First choose an icon from the folder above. These are .icns
files, a wrapper format that contains the same icon in multiple image sizes. They should open in Preview by default; on the largest size hit ⌘A to select the image and ⌘C to copy it.
Next, with the .vncloc
file we created above, right click and choose “Get info”. There is a small icon preview top-left; click to select it and hit ⌘V and it should paste the new icon. You can drag the location file to the right of your Dock for quick access.