Reduce Size Of App Icons On Mac

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Struggling to tap the small app icons towards the edge of the screen? Then don’t worry, because Apple Watch has an accessibility feature that makes them all the same size while also. How to change the size of an image or photo on a mac. How To Change folder icons in Mac OS X. How To Change Icons on Mac Tutorial. How to reduce JPEG files size on Mac? Here we will introduce five free online methods to Mac users for shrinking JPEG files size.

App Icon

Beautiful app icons are an important part of the user experience on all Apple platforms. A unique, memorable icon evokes your app and can help people recognize it at a glance on the desktop, in Finder, and in the Dock. Polished, expressive icons can also hint at an app’s personality and even its overall level of quality.

Reduce Size Of App Icons On Macbook

In macOS 11, app icons share a common set of visual attributes, including the rounded-rectangle shape, front-facing perspective, level position, and uniform drop shadow. Rooted in the macOS 11 design language, these attributes showcase the lifelike rendering style people expect in macOS while presenting a harmonious user experience. To download templates that specify the correct shape and drop shadow, see Apple Design Resources.

IMPORTANT When you update your app for macOS 11, use your new app icon design to replace the icon you designed for earlier versions. You can’t include two different app icons for one app, and the macOS 11 app icon style looks fine on a Mac running Catalina or earlier.

Design a beautiful icon that clearly represents your app. Combine an engaging design with an artistic interpretation of your app’s purpose that people can instantly understand.

Embrace simplicity. Find a concept or element that captures the essence of your app and express it in a simple, unique way, adding details only when doing so enhances meaning. Too many details can be hard to discern and can make the icon appear muddy, especially at smaller sizes.

Establish a single focus point. A single, centered point of interest captures the user’s attention and helps them recognize your app at a glance. Presenting multiple focus points can obscure the icon’s message.

Reduce

To give people a familiar and consistent experience, prefer a design that works well across multiple platforms. If your app runs on other platforms, use a similar image for all app icons while rendering them in the style that’s appropriate for each platform. For example, in iOS and watchOS, the Mail app icon depicts the white envelope in a streamlined, graphical style; in macOS 11, the envelope includes depth and detail that communicate a realistic weight and texture.

macOS 11

Reduce Size Of App Icons On Macbook

Consider depicting a familiar tool to communicate what people use your app to do. To give context to your app’s purpose, you can use the icon background to portray the tool’s environment or the items it affects. For example, the TextEdit icon pairs a mechanical pencil with a sheet of lined paper to suggest a utilitarian writing experience. After you create a detailed, realistic image of a tool, it often works well to let it float just above the background and extend slightly past the icon boundaries. If you do this, make sure the tool remains visually unified with the background and doesn’t overwhelm the rounded-rectangle shape.

Make real objects look real. If you depict real objects in your app icon, make them look like they’re made of physical materials and have actual mass. Replicate the characteristics of substances like fabric, glass, paper, and metal to convey an object’s weight and feel. For example, the Xcode app icon features a hammer that looks like it has a steel head and polymer grip.

If text is essential for communicating your app’s purpose, consider creating a graphic abstraction of it. Actual text in an icon can be difficult to read and doesn’t support accessibility or localization. To give the impression of text without implying that people should zoom in to read it, you can create a graphic texture that suggests it.

To depict photos or parts of your app’s UI, create idealized images that emphasize the features you want people to notice. Photos are often full of details that obscure the main content when viewed at small sizes. If you want to use a photo in your icon, pick one with strongly contrasting values that make the main subject stand out. Remove unimportant details that make primary lines and shapes fuzzy or indistinct. If your app has a UI that people recognize, avoid simply replicating standard UI elements or using a screenshot in your icon. Instead, consider designing a graphic that echoes the UI and expresses the personality of your app.

Don’t use replicas of Apple hardware products. Apple products are copyrighted and can’t be reproduced in your icons or images. Avoid displaying replicas of devices, because hardware designs tend to change frequently and can make your icon look dated.

Use the drop shadow in the icon-design template. The template includes the system-defined drop shadow that helps your app icon coordinate with other macOS 11 icons.

Consider using interior shadows and highlights to add definition and realism. For example, the Mail app icon uses both shadows and highlights to give the envelope authenticity and to suggest that the flap is slightly open. In icons that include a tool that floats above a background — such as TextEdit or Xcode — interior shadows can strengthen the perception of depth and make the tool look real. Shadows and highlights should suggest a light source that faces the icon, positioned just above center and tilted slightly downward.

Avoid defining contours that suggest a shape other than a rounded rectangle. In rare cases, you might want to fine-tune the basic app icon shape, but doing so risks creating an icon that looks like it doesn’t belong in macOS 11. If you must alter the shape, prefer subtle adjustments that continue to express a rounded rectangle silhouette.

Consider adding a slight glow just inside the edges of your icon. If your app icon includes a dark reflective surface, like glass or metal, add an inner glow to make the icon stand out and prevent it from appearing to dissolve into dark backgrounds.

Keep primary content within the icon grid bounding box; keep all content within the outer bounding box. If an icon’s primary content extends beyond the icon grid bounding box, it tends to look out of place. If you overlay a tool on your icon, it works well to align the tool’s top edge with the outer bounding box and its bottom edge with the inner bounding box, as shown below.

In addition to the bounding boxes and suggested tool placement, the icon design template provides a grid to help you position items within an icon. You can also use the icon grid to ensure that centered inner elements like circles use a size that’s consistent with other icons in the system.

App Icon Attributes

All app icons should use the following specifications.

AttributeValue
FormatPNG
Color spacesRGB (color) or Gray Gamma 2.2 (grayscale)
LayersFlattened with transparency as appropriate
Resolution@1x and @2x (see Image Size and Resolution)
ShapeSquare with no rounded corners

Don’t provide app icons in ICNS or JPEG format. The ICNS format doesn’t support features like wide color gamut or deliver the performance and efficiency you get when you use asset catalogs. JPEG doesn’t support transparency through alpha channels, and its compression can blur or distort an icon’s images. For best results, add deinterlaced PNG files to the app icon fields of your Xcode project’s asset catalog.

App Icon Sizes

Your app icon is displayed in many places, including in Finder, the Dock, Launchpad, and the App Store. To ensure that your app icon looks great everywhere people see it, provide it in the following sizes:

  • 512x512 pt (512x512 px @1x, 1024x1024 px @2x)
  • 256x256 pt (256x256 px @1x, 512x512 px @2x)
  • 128x128 pt (128x128 px @1x, 256x256 px @2x)
  • 32x32 pt (32x32 px @1x, 64x64 px @2x)
  • 16x16 pt (16x16 px @1x, 32x32 px @2x)

Maintain visual consistency in all icon sizes. As icon size decreases, fine details become muddy and hard to distinguish. At the smallest sizes, it’s important to remove unnecessary features and exaggerate primary features to help the content remain clear. As you simplify icons that are visually smaller, don’t let them appear drastically different from their larger counterparts. Strive to make subtle variations that ensure the icon remains visually consistent when displayed in different environments. For example, if people drag your icon between displays with different resolutions, the icon’s appearance shouldn’t suddenly change.

The 512x512 pt Safari app icon (on the left) uses a circle of tick marks to indicate degrees; the 16x16 pt version of the icon (on the right) doesn’t include this detail.

  • How to reduce image file size on Mac

by Bill White 4 years ago

How to reduce image file size on Mac

Reducing photo file size has become a common practice when attempting to attach large pictures to emails or upload them on the Web.

There are various ways to reduce photo file size on your Mac. You can use Preview, Mac's default image viewer, or download and install third-party image editors that feature options for reducing file size. This guide will show you how to resize image files by using Mac's default tool as well as using a particular program called Super Resize.

Reduce image file size with Preview

1. Launch the Preview app on your Mac. Go to File -> Open and select the picture you wish to modify.

Preview Menu Window

Icons

2. After the selected picture is imported, go to Tools -> Adjust Size.

Tools Menu Window

3. The first thing you need to do is select the preferred image resolution. Afterwards, you can alter the width and height dimension values according to your needs. On the bottom side of this window, you will see the new file size of the modified picture. You can always undo or alter the resizing options if the details from the Resulting Size panel don't match your needs. The information from the Resulting Size panel is automatically updated as soon as you alter the image resolution. If you want, you can choose one of the default resizing profiles which can be accessed by clicking on the tree menu from the right side of the 'Fit Into' option.

Reduce Size Of App Icons On Mac Desktop

Adjust Size Window

4. Once you finish altering the file size options, click the 'OK' button and save the picture to any folder location within your Mac.

Reduce image file size with Super Resize

Mac

Super Resize is a free Mac program that comes as an alternative to using the Preview utility for reducing the file size of your pictures. It provides you with similar resizing options. However, the application gives you access to several extra features which come in handy if you want to rename the resized photo or add a thumbnail to the imported image file.

1. Launch the application. Use drag-and-drop to import the image you wish to resize or go to File -> Open to select the picture for editing.

Super Resize Main Window

2. On the left side of the interface, you will find various image file resizing options. By clicking on the tree menu that is located in the 'Resize' section, you will reveal the available resizing profiles: By Weight, By Height, By Percentage, By Max Size, and By Min Size. Simply select the preferred output profile and adjust the settings (in this case, the resolution values) according to your needs. You can also add a thumbnail to the imported photo, choose to preserve image metadata before exporting the picture, and rename the edited file.

Preview Window

3. Click the 'Save To' button from the bottom side of the main window and select the destination folder for the resized picture. Click the 'OK' button, and your resized image is immediately exported to the selected folder.

Conclusion

Both applications are free and provide you with easy to configure output settings and quality results. To conclude, it's up to you to decide which of these two programs is the best solution for you.

Alternative downloads

  • PixelmatorImage editor for Mac OS X that allows you to create, edit, and enhance your images.$29.99 DOWNLOAD
  • Super Image ResizerProVery handy Mac OS application for image conversion, resizing and transformation.$2.99 DOWNLOAD
  • Super ResizeSuper Resize — The professional tool to resize images Quickly resize your images...FREE DOWNLOAD
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