Have you ever wanted to change the menu bar icon for Notification Center on your Mac? As you can see from the screenshot above, I changed my icon to a moon icon. In this step-by-step video tutorial, I’ll show you what it takes for you to do the same.
Changing the Notification Center icon in the menu bar is a fairly simple task. It involves replacing the menu bar icon file with a new file, and restarting the menu bar. Although, the actual process is easy, it can be a a little tricky if you don’t know exactly where to go. Here’s how to do it:
Step 1: Open Finder → Go → Go to Folder
Step 2: Paste the following folder location in the Go to the folder box:
/System/Library/CoreServices/SystemUIServer.app/Contents/Resources/
Step 3: Find the menuitemNormal.pdf file and create a backup copy
Step 4: Overwrite the menuitemNormal.pdf file with a file containing a different icon
- You can download the moon icon version of menuitemNormal.pdf here.
- You can download the original menuitemNormal.pdf here.
- You can also make your own icon in an image editor that supports PDF output. You’ll want to use the original menuitemNormal.pdf as a starting spot for your modifications.
Step 5: Open Terminal and type the following:
killall SystemUIServer
The menu bar should flash as it restarts, and you should see the change on the Notification Center icon.
You can also completely remove the menu bar icon and retain Notification Center functionality by deleting the menuitemNormal.pdf from the folder altogether. If ever you want to return back to the default icon, simply replace menuitemNormal.pdf with the original version, and perform Step 5 again.
What do you think about my moon icon for Notification Center?