I’ve been trying to make Mojave look like Snow Leopard, but one thing I couldn’t find was a theme for System Preferences. So I made my own. It’s my first theming project and I decided to share it, even though I don’t think anyone will care about it, since Mojave has been out of support for a year.
Here is a comparison of original System Preferences in Mojave, and the Snow Leopard theme.
![SnowLeopardTheme.png]( "SnowLeopardTheme.png")
And, for a reference, the original OS X Snow Leopard System Preferences.
![Screen shot 2021-12-04 at 22.17.59.png]( "Screen shot 2021-12-04 at 22.17.59.png")
I had to overcome few obstacles to create the theme. Mostly the fact that the Snow Leopard icons are 32x32, but Mojave icons are 40x40. In most cases, I found a larger version of the Snow Leopard icon that I could resize to 40x40, but some of them look a bit different.
I also realized that some preference panes did not exist in Snow Leopard, such as Notifications, Internet Accounts and Extensions. I kept Extensions the way it was, and used icons from Lion and Mountain Lion for the other two.
To change the icons:
Here is a comparison of original System Preferences in Mojave, and the Snow Leopard theme.
And, for a reference, the original OS X Snow Leopard System Preferences.
I had to overcome few obstacles to create the theme. Mostly the fact that the Snow Leopard icons are 32x32, but Mojave icons are 40x40. In most cases, I found a larger version of the Snow Leopard icon that I could resize to 40x40, but some of them look a bit different.
I also realized that some preference panes did not exist in Snow Leopard, such as Notifications, Internet Accounts and Extensions. I kept Extensions the way it was, and used icons from Lion and Mountain Lion for the other two.
To change the icons:
- Download the icon pack and unzip the file.
- (If you run Mojave via dosdude1’s patcher, skip this step). Disable SIP and restart.
- Go to Startup Disk > System > Library > PreferencePanes
- Back-up the folder contents. Make a copy of the whole folder and save it somewhere else on your disk. You will need it if you decide to restore the original icons.
- Replace the PreferencePanes folder with the downloaded one.
- (If you run Mojave via dosdude1’s patcher, skip this step). Re-enable SIP and restart.
- Open System Preferences. You’ll be greeted by Snow Leopard icons.
- The above will only change the icons, not your actual settings.
- Tested only on two non-Retina Macs. If anyone tries it on Retina, let me know if all looks good.
