How to Modify Android App Icons on a Mac

You can customize Android apps with your own icons.

Android apps come in APK files, which are actually just ZIP archives with a different file extension. You can extract the Android app's APK file on your Mac and modify the app icon that appears on your Android smartphone or tablet. After modifying the app's icon, which is a single PNG image located inside the app, you can repack the Android app into an APK archive and install the modified app on your Android device. The Android app appears on your device's home screen with your custom image instead of its default image.

Instructions

1. Download the Android app in APK format to your Mac.

2. Click the APK file’s name on your Mac, change its file extension from “APK” to “ZIP” and press “Enter.”

3. Double-click the ZIP file to extract its contents to the current folder on your Mac.

4. Navigate to the “/res/drawable” folder inside the app’s extracted files.

5. Replace the “icon.png” file inside the Drawable folder with your own, 48x48-pixel icon in PNG format.

6. Select all the files you extracted from the APK file in the finder, click the “File” menu and click “Create an Archive” to create a new ZIP archive.

7. Rename the new ZIP archive’s file extension from “ZIP” to “APK”.

Tips & Warnings

• The app may have multiple “drawable” folders containing icons of different sizes for different resolutions. Note the pixel size of the icon in each folder and add a custom image of equal size.

• Copy the APK file to your Android device’s internal storage or SD card to install it on your device.

References

• Android Developers: Providing Resources