Ubuntu – How to change the icon of an application in the Unity launcher

iconsunity

I'm trying to change the icon of a specific application (Pidgin) in my Ubuntu 11.10 Unity launcher. I have tried searching in the options and in the Compiz settings but could locate no option for changing individual icons.

I can change the theme but that's not what I want.

I am willing to edit configuration files to get this change. It doesn't have to be a UI solution.

Best Answer

For Ubuntu 11.10

The first thing you would need to do is take a .png icon file that you would like to use and copy it to the respective ~/.local/share/icons/hicolor/ directory. This will contain the following directories (which are the dimensions of the icons) : 16x16/apps/ 32x32/apps/ 48x48/apps/

I downloaded a free 16x16 free icon sampler and picked a 16x16 icon called Alien.png

I took the Alien.png file and copied it to ~/.local/share/icons/hicolor/16x16/apps, When you copy yours, you can do that through either the GUI or terminal.

From there you would need do the following in a terminal (you may need sudo to copy this over):

cp /usr/share/applications/pidgin.desktop ~/.local/share/applications/

Next edit the pidgin.desktop file:

vi ~/.local/share/applications/pidgin.desktop

Look for the line that says: 

Icon=pidgin

This will need to change to the new icon name without the .png prefix...

Icon=Alien

Save your changes... Then logout and log back in.

Please let me know if this helps or if you need more assistance.

Related Question