Switching to the Mac: The Missing Manual, El Capitan Edition

Aliases: Icons in Two Places at Once

Highlighting an icon and then choosing File→Make Alias (or pressing ⌘-L) generates an alias, a specially branded duplicate of the original icon (Figure 3-7). It’s not a duplicate of the file—just of the icon; therefore it requires negligible storage space. When you double-click the alias, the original file opens. (A Macintosh alias is essentially the same as a Windows shortcut.)

You can create as many aliases as you want of a single file; therefore, in effect, aliases let you stash that file in many different folder locations simultaneously. Double-click any one of them, and you open the original file, wherever it may be on your system.

POWER USERS’ CLINIC: Designing Your Own Icons

You don’t have to be content with the icons provided by Microsoft, Apple, or whoever else wrote your software. You can paste new icons onto your file, disk, and folder icons to help you pick them out at a glance.

The easiest way to replace an icon is to copy it from another icon. To do so, highlight the icon you want to copy, hold down the Option key, and choose File→Show Inspector. In the resulting window, click the icon, and then choose Edit→Copy.

Next, click the icon to which you want to transfer the copied picture. Its icon now appears in the Info dialog box that’s still open on the screen. Click the icon in the dialog box, and this time choose Edit→Paste.

If you’d rather introduce all-new icons, you’re welcome to steal some of the beautifully designed ones waiting at ...