Do you want to make Ubuntu look like Mac OS X? If so, we’re going to show you how to do it, step-by-step.
The whole point of using Linux is that you can do things like this
![Macos icon theme for ubuntu windows 7 Macos icon theme for ubuntu windows 7](/uploads/1/2/6/6/126612971/379935983.png)
It doesn’t matter whether you have a bad case of Apple envy, or you simply appreciate the design aesthetic of Apple’s OS; there’s nothing wrong with aping the appearance of a rival operating system.
After all, the whole point of using Linux is that you are free to do things like this — and hey: you certainly can’t make macOS look like Ubuntu!
Sep 22, 2019 One thing that you will miss in this Catalina theme is the Activities button icon. On the other Mac theme above, the Activities button will turned into a nice launcher icon. So basically there are still many Mac OS X themes available at Gnome-Look website. Many of them are derived from the same theme with some little modifications.
How To Make Ubuntu Look like a Mac
A stack of mac GTK themes, icon sets, fonts and cursors are available for Linux, just a quick Google away.
The ones included below are the ones we use/think give you the best Mac-like look on your Linux box, But don’t be afraid to explore DeviantArt, GitHub and other avenues if our choices don’t quite match with your tastes.
1. Pick the Right Desktop Environment
GNOME Shell
To achieve the most Mac-like look on Linux you need to use the most appropriate desktop environment and that is GNOME Shell.
This is not a slight against other desktop environments (DEs) as Unity, Budgie, MATE and Cinnamon can all be moulded to resemble Cupertino’s computing OS too.
But GNOME Shell is the most customisable desktop environment. This is a key ask in a task like this. GNOME Shell lets you theme and re-arrange everything you need to with the least amount hackery or fuss.
If you’re using Ubuntu 18.04 LTS or later you already have everything you need to get started, so skip ahead.
If your Mac isn't compatible with OS X El Capitan, the installer will let you know. Front row enabler for el capitan free. Your Mac also needs at least 2GB of memory and 8.8GB of.introduced in 2009 or later, plus MacBook (13-inch, Aluminium, Late 2008)introduced in late 2008 or laterintroduced in mid 2007 or laterintroduced in early 2009 or laterintroduced in mid 2007 or laterintroduced in early 2008 or laterXserve models introduced in early 2009To find your Mac model, memory, storage space and macOS version, choose About This Mac from the Apple menu . You can upgrade to OS X El Capitan from on any of the following Mac models.
But if you don’t have GNOME Shell installed on Ubuntu you will need to install it first.
This is easy. Just click the button below and follow in the on-screen prompts (select ‘lightdm’ as the display manager when asked):
You’re also going to need to the GNOME Tweaks tool in a few steps time, so install that now too:
Once both installations are complete you need to logout and select the ‘GNOME Shell’ session from the Unity Greeter:
A word on using Unity
One thing GNOME Shell can’t offer, that the Unity desktop can, is global menu support.
Now, I don’t consider this to be a negative as more and more applications use use Client Side Decorations, making the need for a global menu redundant.
But if having an omnipresent set of app menus stripped across the top of the screen is part of the Mac experience you don’t wish to lose, stick with Unity.
2. Install a Mac GTK Theme
The single easiest way to make Ubuntu look like a Mac is to install a Mac GTK theme.
Our top recommendation is the ‘macOS Mojave’ theme by Vinceluice. This is a near-enough pixel-perfect clone of Apple’s OS skin, and is available in light and dark versions. It’s one of the best designed Mac GTK themes out there (it also has a matching GNOME Shell theme).
The ‘macOS Mojave’ theme requires GNOME 3.20 or later, so you’ll need to be running Ubuntu 16.10 or later to use it.
If you’re running the older Ubuntu 16.04 LTS release you can use the competent ‘macOS Sierra’ clone created by the B00merang project:
Tip: How To Install GTK Themes
Once you download your chosen macOS theme from the link(s) above, you will need to install it.
To install themes in Ubuntu first extract the contents of the archive you downloaded, then move the folder inside to the
~/.themes
folder in your Home directory.If you do not see this folder press
Ctrl + H
to reveal hidden folders. Next, find the .themes folder or create it if it doesn’t exist. Move the extract folder mentioned above to this folder.Finally, to change theme, open
GNOME Tweak Tool > Appearance
and select your chosen theme (and the GNOME Shell theme, if you also downloaded one).3. Install a Mac Icon Set
Next grab some a Mac Icon set for Linux. A quick Google will throw up a bunch of results. Most, sadly, aren’t complete enough to function as a full icon set, so you’ll also want to use (and in some cases manually specify) a fall back icon theme like Faba, or Papirus.
To avoid all of that hassle you may wish to use the fabulous ‘La Capitaine‘ icon pack.
What’s great about La Capitaine is that it’s a proper Linux icon set, with custom macOS inspired icons for many Linux apps and not just a direct port of mac icons to Linux. It’s also totally open-source, and is available to download from Github.
How to Install Icon Themes
Once you’ve downloaded your chosen theme from the link(s) above you need to install it. To do this first extract the contents of the archive you download, then move the folder inside to the
~/.icons
folder in your Home directory.If you don’t see this folder press
Ctrl + H
to view hidden folders. Next, find the .icons folder or create it if it doesn’t exist. Move the extract folder mentioned above to this folder.Finally, to apply, open
GNOME Tweak Tool > Appearance
and select your chosen theme.4. Change the System Font
If you’ve used Mac OS X / macOS at some point in the past few years you’ll know it has clean, crisp system typography.
‘Lucida Grande’ is the familiar Mac system font, though Apple uses a system font called ‘San Franciso’ in recent releases of macOS.
A quick Google should turn up plenty more information (and links to download San Francisco font) but be aware that neither font is not licensed for distribution — so we can’t link you to it, sorry!
Thankfully there’s an open-source alternative to ‘Lucida Grande’ called Garuda. It’s even pre-installed out of the box on Ubuntu, so you don’t need to go on a font safari to find it.
Head to
GNOME Tweak Tool > Fonts
and set the ‘Windows Titles’ and ‘Interface’ fonts to Garuda Regular (or any other font you wish).If you use Unity you can use Unity Tweak Tool to change the font on Ubuntu.
5. Add a Desktop Dock
Ask people what a Mac desktop looks like and chances are they will mention its ubiqutious desktop dock. This is a combined application launcher and window switcher.
If you opted to use GNOME Shell back in Step 1 install the excellent Dash to Dock extension Download imovie for mac catalina. from the GNOME extensions site. This dock can be adjusted, tweaked and tune to look exactly like its macOS counterpart.
Dash to Dock doesn’t look very mac-ish by default so you will want to dive in to the
GNOME Tweak Tool > Extensions > Dash to Dock > Appearance
to change the colour to white, and lower the opacity.Plank Dock
If you chose to stick with the Unity desktop you can set the Unity Launcher to hide (
System Settings > Desktop > Behaviour
) and install Plank, a desktop dock, to handle app launching and window switching:Plank can be configured with all sorts of themes too, making it easy to replicate the Mac OS X experience. Gnosemite is a faithful mac Plank theme worth a look.
That’s it; we’ve achieved our aim to make Ubuntu look like a Mac — now it’s your turn.
We’d love to see a screenshot of your mac-inspired creation so do feel free to share one in the comments.
Ubuntu 20.04 brought new GNOME 3.36 with a whole new set of customizations and improvements. You could change the theme from within Ubuntu settings. You had Extensions built-in the app launcher, by default. So, you could download and use GNOME extensions without installing GNOME tweaks. But, there was nothing for icons. I still have to be content with Yaru icons and a bit of fiddling in GNOME tweaks. So, I went on to search the best icon packs that worked with Ubuntu 20.04, and here’s the list.
Best Icon Pack for Ubuntu
How to install an icon pack
The process to install an icon pack differs from developer to developer. I have mentioned the installation command along with the icon theme. However, to set the icon pack, the following are the steps.
- Install GNOME Tweaks using the “sudo apt install gnome-tweaks”
- Next, hit Alt+F2, type r and hit Enter to restart GNOME
- Head over to Tweaks and under the Appearance tab you can change the icons
1. Folder Color
Folder Color is not an icon pack per se but a pretty handy utility. It lets you provide different colors to the folders with a right-click. This makes it much efficient in distinguishing important folders. In my case, I have assigned colors black, grey, brown to the folders I rarely use. This way I can’t see these folders in Nautilus and trick my brain to believe they don’t exist.
The most amazing thing is that it works with all Ubuntu default icons like Yaru, Adwaita, GNOME, etc and other file explorers like Caja and Nemo. So you wouldn’t have to install any overhead besides Folder Color. Below are the commands to install Folder Color on Ubuntu.
Installation Command:
In case you don’t use the Yaru Icons, don’t install the “yaru-colors-folder-color” package.
Install Folder Color
2. Papirus Icon Theme
This list wouldn’t be complete without Papirus. It’s quite popular and has reasons for it. It supports a lot of icons as well as dark and light themes. It is continuously updated. Out of all the themes, I have tried Papirus supports icons of most third-party apps. The only complaint I had is there are is no cursor support.
Macos Icon Theme For Ubuntu Free
Installation Command:
Visit Papirus Icon Theme
3. Suru++
Suru+ is an icon pack built on top of the popular icon pack Suru from Sam Hewitt. I just love Suru++ for the consistency of the icon shape throughout. All the icons in the launcher, dock, settings are squircle-shaped and it maintains consistency almost throughout GNOME. Coming from Pixel icon packs, it had me on this consistent shape. Bonus, it has a cursor icon as well.
Installation Command:
![Macos Macos](/uploads/1/2/6/6/126612971/577185210.png)
Visit Suru++
4. Numix Circle
Similar to Suru++, I loved Numix Circle because of the consistent shape throughout icons in GNOME. I would also love to have the same consistency in file explorer. Moreover, when you install the Numix circle icon pack, it’ll give you 4 icon packs – Numix, Numix-Light, Numix-Circle, Numix-Circle-Light. Out of these 4, I only found Numix Circle good enough.
Having said that, unlike Suru++ Numix has options for both light and dark themes.
Installation Command:
Visit Numix Circle
5. OS Catalina
If you love the macOS theme and icons, you can get it on Linux as well. In my previous article on dynamic wallpaper apps for Ubuntu, I mentioned a way to get the macOS Mojave wallpaper. To get the same icon pack, you have to download the tar file from this link, extract it and move to the “~/.icons” directory. Next, restart GNOME and you would find the option to set OS-Catalina icons.
Although there’s a huge craze for these icons, I didn’t find it appealing on my PopOS distro.
Visit OS Catalina
6. we10x
Windows 10X has been the talk of the town. In case you don’t know, it’s Microsoft’s future OS for foldable devices. The best part about it is the return of 3D icons. You can get the same on Ubuntu as well. To install it, download the tar file from this link. Next, extract the folder and run the following command from within the folder.
Macos Icon Theme For Ubuntu Windows 7
Complement the Windows10X icon pack with the pre-release wallpaper and you have a Surface in your hand.
7. Shadow Icon
If you have embraced the dark world (cheesy AF), the Shadow Icon pack is the way to go. It’s a 2D icon theme with a brush of shadow on the icons. I liked that the developer has maintained icon consistency even in the file explorer. Everything is circular from the settings menu to the dock and the launcher. By far, I feel this is a must-have theme if you use dark mode consistently.
I didn’t find it appealing with the light theme and it doesn’t support Folder Color.
Installation Command:
Visit Shadow Icon
8. Pop Icon Themes
Recently, I moved to PopOS to try out new flavors of Ubuntu. The first thing I loved is the PopOS theme and icons. Well, you can install it on Ubuntu as well. It supports icons for the top bar, launcher, file explorer, cursor, shell, etc. Similar to Yaru and Papirus, it also supports Folder Color.
In case you like PopOS wallpapers, you can install it via a package called “pop-wallpapers”.
Installation Command:
Visit PopOS Icons
9. Flattr
Flattr is a basic 2-dimensional icon pack. Surprisingly, I found it to have much more icon support than Luv icons which is built on top of Flattr. If you are coming from Pop Icons, you would hardly notice any difference. Flattr Dark has a good set of minimal file icons in the black and white shade which look beautiful in Nautilus.
Installation Command:
Visit Flattr Icons
10. Luv Icons
Luv icon pack is pretty new to the icon pack scene. It’s a successor to Flattr and supports thousands of icons. However, I found it to be lagging when compared to Papirus. You can report the missing icons on the GitHub page. Besides icons, it also provides wallpapers to complement with the icon packs.
Installation Command:
Visit Luv Icons
11. Candy Icons
Candy Icons is by far the fanciest theme in this list. The developer went all out in maintaining abstract and fancy colors. I quite liked the theme in dark mode. The process to install candy icons is similar to OS Catalina. Download and extract the zip file from this link. Move the folder to the “~./.icons” folder.
However, the file icons don’t complement the icon pack. To fix that, you can combine it with Sweet Folders which is a folder icon add on for Candy Icons. The step to integrate them is quite tedious.
- First, download the Sweet Folder Icons tar file. Extract and move it to the “./.icons” folder
- Restart GNOME by giving an Alt+F2, type r and hit Enter
- Next, set Icons as Sweet-Purple or rainbow aCcording to your preference
- Now, within the icons folder, head over to the icon directory assigned
- Open the “Index.Theme” file in a text editor and replace the “Inherits=” line with the following
Visit Candy Icons
Closing Words
I loved the Suru++ and we10x icon pack and I am rocking it on my PopOS machine. Let me know what’s your favorite in the comments below.
Also Read: 7 Best Ubuntu Dynamic Wallpaper Apps