Mac Tips & Tricks

Customizing Your Modern Mac OS to Look Like System 7

In this tutorial, I will show you how to customize Mac OS Sequoia to look more like System 7. The steps described here probably work with older versions of Mac OS X and beyond. Sequoia is the Mac OS version I have installed on my MacBook Air, so that's the one I used msyelf.

Desktop

The first thing you want to do is update your desktop wallpaper or, as they used to call it back in the day, desktop pattern :)

Luckly for us, sequoia alrey comes with a set of plain pattern, including a blue one which reminds me a lot of the default Mac OS 7.5 blue pattern:

The next step involves displaying your Macintosh HD in the desktop. To do so, switch over to Finder, click on Finder and select Settings. In the General tab, select "Hard Disks" under "Show these items on the desktop":

After that, you should see your hard disk appear on the top right corner of your desktop. Now, we need to change the icon so it looks like the hard disk icon from System 7. To do so, you will need to download this icon set here from the Macintosh Repository.

Once downloaded, extract it using an app that can extract .sit files. My extractor of choice for modern Mac OS is The Unarchiver. But you can use any other app as long as it can extract .sit files.

Now that your icon set is extracted, go back to your Desktop, select your hard disk and press Command + I. Then, drag and drop the icon called Mac OS 7 HD Icon over the hard disk icon at the top left corner of the window.

The next thing you'll need for a complete System 7 desktop is a Trash bin. In order to put a Trash bin in your desktop, you will need a simple apple script whcih ChatGPT has kindly created for me:

-- Handler for when the script is double-clicked
on run
    tell application "Finder"
        open trash
    end tell
end run

-- Handler for when items are dropped onto the script
on open droppedItems
    tell application "Finder"
        repeat with anItem in droppedItems
            try
                if (kind of (info for anItem)) is "Volume" then
                    eject anItem
                else
                    move anItem to trash
                end if
            on error errMsg
                display dialog "An error occurred: " & errMsg buttons {"OK"} default button "OK"
            end try
        end repeat
    end tell
end open

I could spend some time describing line by line of this script. But what's really important to know is that this script will open the Trash when launched. It will also move any items you drag onto it into the Trash. Finally, it will also eject any volumes you drag into it as well.

Open the Script Editor App on your Mac and paste the above script into the editor. Then go to File and select Export... Then Save it to your Desktop folder using the following options:

Now, it's time to change the script icon with System 7's trash icon. To do so, select the script on your desktop and click Command + I. Download the Trash Icon from here, drag and drop it onto the script default icon on the top left corner of the window.

Now move the Trash script to the bottom right corner of your screen and voilà! Your desktop should look like this:

Giving the Trash script Desktop Access

Now you will need to give the Trash script desktop access. Otherwise, you will be prompted if you want to allow it to access your desktop, everytime you launch the script.

To do so, open your System Settings, go to Privacy & Security and select Full Disk Access. Then click on the + button and add your Trash script located in your desktop.

Mimicking the Application Menu

Classic Mac OS had something called Application Menu. This was a drop down menu at the top right corned of the screen which allowed users to switch between open applications and hide them.

I recently came across this amazing app for modern Macs called Switch Glass. I particularly like the fact that it has an option where it shows up only when you hover your mouse on the top right corner of your screen. It may not be exactly like the Application Menu we had in Classic Mac OS. But it's close enough!