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Elise
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In a few minutes with these simple instructions, you can return your Address Book and iCal themes to the unobtrusive Aluminum themes that you’re accustomed to. Keep the backups of your AddressBook.app and iCal.app files if you think you may revert to the original Lion them.

Miss Your Old iCal and Address Book Themes? Here’s How You Can Restore Them!

ical iconSo you just upgraded to Lion, or brought home a new Mac with Lion pre-installed, and you’re overwhelmed with excitement. You booted it up for the first time, and you slowly opened all of the new versions of your favorite apps to see how they work in Lion. When you finally got to iCal, you discovered that Apple’s new iCal themes looks like your grandpa’s Filofax. Then you opened Address Book only to be greeted by a first edition Dickens novel.

Much to our collective dismay, Apple wrapped both iCal and Address Book in faux leather motifs, complete with paper shreds at the top of your calendar and a faux bookmark at the top of your Address Book. If you have not had the chance to see it, this is what is awaiting you when you fire up iCal in Lion.

Getting the “Themes” Back to Normal

If you haven’ already seen, this is how the Calendar looks.

iCalScreenSnapz001

And if that was not bad enough, take a look at Address Book.

Address BookScreenSnapz001 copy 2

Fortunately, thanks to MacNix, you do not have to endure the hideousness of these themes. You can restore the aluminum display you know and love to both iCal and Address Book in just a few simple steps.

Restoring the Aluminum Theme to Address Book

  1. Make a copy of your AddressBook.app file, because you will need it if you decide to revert to the leather-like theme.

    clip_image004

  2. Download the Address Book Skin disk image.
  3. Mount the 10.7_AddressBook_Skin_Installer.dmg file.
  4. Open the disk image and double-click on 10.7_AddressBook_Aluminium_Installer.pkg file.
  5. When the installer package opens, click Continue to begin the installation.

    InstallerScreenSnapz001

  6. Click the Install button to perform the installation.

    InstallerScreenSnapz002

  7. When you are prompted to, enter your account password and click the Install Software button.
  8. Click the Close button when the installation completes.

    InstallerScreenSnapz003

  9. Launch Address Book and confirm that the theme has been changed successfully.

    Address BookScreenSnapz001

Restoring the Aluminum Theme to iCal

  1. Make a copy of your iCal.app file, because you will need it if you decide to revert to the leather-like theme.

    FinderScreenSnapz001 copy

  2. Download the iCal Skin disk image.
  3. Mount the 10.7_iCal_Skin_Installer.dmg file.
  4. Open the disk image and double-click on 10.7_iCal_Aluminium_Installer.pkg file
  5. Click the Continue button when the installer opens to continue the installation.

    InstallerScreenSnapz001 copy

  6. Click the Install button to perform the installation.

    InstallerScreenSnapz002 copy

  7. When you are prompted to, enter your password and click the Install Software button.
  8. Click the Close button when the installer completes.

    InstallerScreenSnapz001 copy 2

  9. Launch iCal to see if the changes have been made successfully.

    iCalScreenSnapz001 copy

In a few minutes with these simple instructions, you can return your Address Book and iCal themes to the unobtrusive Aluminum themes that you’re accustomed to. Keep the backups of your AddressBook.app and iCal.app files if you think you may revert to the original Lion them. Just copy the applications back to the Applications folder and overwrite the existing ones to restore the faux-leather themes.

So would you be using the above instructions to restore your address book and iCal themes back to normal? Do you have any other method to restore themes for your iCal and Address book. Let us know in the comments.

Related posts:

How To Download And Install Windows 7 Themes? How to Get Your Mac Ready to Upgrade to Mac OS X Lion How To Use Lion Recovery Disk Assistant To Make A USB Recovery Drive [Back Up]
  • http://www.niccolobrogi.com Niccolò Brogi

    The new theme really sucks.

    Hope they change it back.

  • commenterx

    The iCal fix still keeps the hideous brown fonts. It’s not the only UI faux pas they did. The mini section on the right (that was similar to iTunes) is gone. It was very useful for its mini calendar, which you could check for past/future dates while working on the main one. Now it has a Reminders section on the right that takes a lot of space and its not optional to close. Let’s not even go with the faux ripped pages and page flip animations. They pretty much tried to fix something that wasn’t broke, and broke it. I don’t think Steve Jobs would’ve approved this travesty.