[Android General] geek-x:
Oh well, if you're like me that loves to do the things I could do the hardcore geeky way without the help of apps and tools, unless obviously using an app will save you a lot of time, then you're on the right thread. :cool:

Anyway this will be my first howto guide on xda-dev, please be nice :o . This will be a noob to noob guide, taking every step into consideration. If you've got any issues getting it done, please don't hesitate to leave a comment, so let's have a ride to geekville.

As you'd know, changing app icons is something every lover of awesome interface and design can't do without, and we've got Android Launchers that will do this for you on the go, but really, they just change the icons of the apps in the drawer and not globally, for example, Whatsapp's icon changed with a launcher only changes in the app drawer and not the entire whatsapp ecosystem, even worse, the minute you revert back to your stock launcher, it changes to the original icon.

Here's an illustration:

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As you can see in the image above, its the same es file explorer app but different icons, that's going to be our goal in this guide, changing the icons globally, if you changed the icon with a launcher, you'll only get your new icon replaced in the app drawer. So let's change our first icon. :D

Requirements.

A PC.

Apk Icon Editor By kefir500

iConvert Icons for Windows

Java Runtime Environment for signing the resulting apk by Apk Icon Editor. You can get it here.

An icon you'd like to replace for the old one.

Your time.

iConverticons.com actually does have an icon converter for the mac platform but since Apk Icon Editor is written in C++ for the Windows platform , what's the point? . Also the iConverticons utility does have a free version, don't know why they had to hide it on the site, you can just grab the free one from softpedia anyway, only costs you 10 seconds on every startup of the app.

Once you're done downloading the files from the links above, run their respective setups and grab any .apk file you'd like to try out in your android's

/data/app/

directory, (you're pro'lly going to need root access to mess with this directory, but you can always grab any .apk elsewhere).

1. Copy the .apk file to anywhere on your pc.

2. Now, get the icon you'd like to replace ready, it could be in the same path as your .apk file, doesn't matter, but preferrably go for a 512px icon size, you'll be glad you did. I'll be replacing the stock whatsapp icon with a flatter alternative by DtafAlonso on DeviantArt.

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3. Start up the iConverticons app, then wait for its 10 seconds delay thing, before we create the icons, we need to modify the preferences for the conversion output, make yours match the images below.

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4. Next, drag and drop the icon you want replaced in the iConverticons app, this will be followed with a dialog of where you want the resulting icons replaced, choose the folder you created earlier as the output folder and in about a second you should see a "Done" message.

5. Now go to that folder where the outputs from the conversion was saved, you should now see a set of icons in different folders namely xxhdpi, xhdpi, hdpi, ldpi and mdpi.

6. Start up apk-icon-editor.exe, then drag and drop your .apk file into the app's workspace, you'll get a progress bar showing that the package is being extracted and the contents of the AndroidManifest.xml file.

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7. You will now see the original whatsapp icons in this window, Select the right icon size/dpi on the right, and then Right Click > Replace Icon ..then select the right icon size from the right conversion folder. The icon is replaced immediately, do these for the other sizes of the icons, you can choose to make the icons stay at just one size even on small devices, (just make sure you choose not to resize it if the editor asks if you want the icon resized).

8. Once you're done, Click "Pack Apk" and choose the destination folder you'd want your new apk file saved. You can choose to overwrite the previous one or have a copy of it named anything you like[dot]apk.

9. Then copy the new .apk file to your phone's sdcard and uninstall the app if it was present on your phone already, (installing the same app on your phone will cause the installation to fail), then install it.

Now you have a unique icon for that app. :D

NOTE: If you're curious as to why the original .apk file and the new one have different sizes, this is caused by the size of the icons you used, so for example, you might have an original size of 15.6MB and a new size of 15.45MB. one more thing, I have noticed apps like BBM misbehave when you touch their app icons something about them having conflicts with how the package was signed, so you can try this out with other apps apart from BBM and please tell me what apps break for you when you try it. :D