How to Give Your Whole Mac Dock a New Icon Pack in One Step

Why one app at a time gets old fast

macOS has a built-in way to change icons, but it works on one app at a time. Find the app in Finder → Applications, right-click it, choose Get Info, and drag the new picture onto the small icon in the top-left corner of the window, as AppleInsider explains. You can open Get Info with Command-I instead of right-clicking, but you still repeat the whole thing for every app.

That method has a few catches. macOS may ask for your administrator password when you drop in a new icon. Apple's own apps, such as Messages, Calendar and Music, can't be changed this way, and changing them anyway means turning off System Integrity Protection first. And some apps go back to their original icons after an update.

Moor works differently. It draws every icon in its own docks, so it can apply a whole folder of icons at once and leave the apps alone.

Where free icon packs come from

macOSicons.com describes itself as the largest collection of free macOS app icons. It has more than 30,000 icons from many designers, which you can download as .icns or PNG. Icon sets like this usually land on your Mac as a folder of image files, each named more or less after an app.

Moor treats that folder as an icon pack. An icon pack is just a folder of pictures named after apps (Safari.png, Slack.icns) or after their bundle IDs (com.tinyspeck.slackmacgap.png). For a Moor icon pack, download PNG or .icns files.

Import an icon pack in Moor, step by step

First, make sure a Moor dock is on screen. Icon packs change only Moor's docks, so your active profile needs to be set to Moor only or Both in Settings → Profiles. The Profiles docs explain how dock modes work.

1. Make a new folder, for example ~/Pictures/Dock Icons.
2. Download the icons you want from macosicons.com (or any icon site) as PNG or .icns files and save them all into that folder.
3. Open Moor's Settings from the menu bar (the little boat), then go to Settings → Icons.
4. Choose Import Icon Pack… and select the folder.
5. Check the result. Moor tells you how many pictures it matched to your apps.
6. Look at your dock. Matched apps now show their new icons in Moor's docks.

That's it. You don't open any Get Info windows, type a password or drag icons in one app at a time.

How Moor matches loosely named files

Icon sites rarely name files exactly after the app, so you get names like "Slack-macOS-BigSur-dark.png". Moor ignores the extra words icon sites often add, so that file still matches Slack.

What stays the same

Moor never modifies your apps. Finder and Apple's Dock keep showing the original icons, and nothing else on your Mac changes. The App icons docs cover icon styles, custom icons and icon packs in more detail.

Icon packs and styles apply only to apps. Folders, files, widgets and the Trash keep their own look, which you change with themes.

This is separate from Apple's own icon setting. macOS 26 Tahoe added system-wide icon appearances (Default, Dark, Clear and Tinted) in System Settings → Appearance → Icon & Widget Style, which apply to Dock icons, desktop widgets and Home Screen-style surfaces together. Moor's styles and packs only affect Moor's docks.

Tips and tricks

Fill the gaps one app at a time. A pack rarely covers every app you use. For any app it missed, right-click the app in a Moor dock, choose Options → Change Icon…, and pick a PNG, JPEG or .icns file. Square pictures look best. Moor's docs note that custom icons are saved with its other data in ~/Library/Application Support/Moor/icons.

Pair a pack with an icon style. Custom icons override the style set in Settings → Icons. You can pick a style such as Glyphs, Tinted or Monochrome for everything, and your pack's icons will replace it for the apps you care about most. You can also pick a style while editing (Control-Option-E) from the Theme menu → App Icons.

Keep the folder. Store your pack folder somewhere permanent. Then it's easy to import the same pack again when you set up Moor on another Mac.

Use bundle IDs when names are close. Moor also matches files named after bundle IDs. If two apps have similar names, naming the file after the bundle ID is the most exact way to point it at one app.

Give each dock its own theme. Each dock has its own theme, so a side dock can look different from the main one.

Removing custom icons

You can remove custom icons one at a time or all at once:

• One app: right-click it in a Moor dock and choose Options → Reset Icon, or use Reset in Settings → Icons.
• Everything: Reset All in Settings → Icons removes every custom icon at once.

With Get Info, resetting means clicking the icon and pressing Delete separately for every app.

Troubleshooting

• New icons don't appear in Apple's Dock. That's expected. Only Moor's docks change.
• Nothing changed at all. Check that your profile shows Moor's docks (Moor only or Both in Settings → Profiles).
• A folder or the Trash didn't change. Packs apply only to apps. Use a theme for everything else.
• An app kept its old icon. The pack may not have a file Moor could match to it. Set it by hand: right-click it in a Moor dock and choose Options → Change Icon….

Next steps

Pick a few icons from macosicons.com, put them in one folder, and run Import Icon Pack… to see how many match. Then fill any gaps with Change Icon… and choose a style for the rest. For more on styles, see how to give every app icon on your dock a matching style.

Moor has a free 14-day trial at moorapp.com.