How to extract integrated icons from any file

At some point you might find yourself needing a program icon for use in one of your projects. In fact it’s quite easy to find such icons in images of up to 512×512 integrated into many different types of files, and thus it could come in quite handy to have a tool that can extract them from .exe files or libraries in your preferred output format while preserving their transparency. Mac OS X includes this option by default, but on Windows it’s advisable to use an external tool like BeCyIconGrabber.

Extract icons on Windows using BeCyIconGrabber

Once you’ve installed and opened the program, you just have to search for the file you want to extract the icons from using the file explorer at the left side of the screen. When you select it, to the right will appear different tabs with the icons in different resolutions (32×32, 64×64, 128×128 and 256×256).

To save it independently, you have to select the one that interests you and press the Save button, where, besides selecting the file path to save it to, you can choose the export format (ico, cur, bmp, or png). In addition, you can save the same icon in several different resolutions and color profiles simultaneously.

Export icons on Mac OS X from Finder

The dmg file for a program can be broken down to extract the icons inside it directly from Finder on Mac OS X. To do so, double-click on the application in question and then right-click on the preview window selecting the Show Package Contents option. When the file tree folds out (normally in Contents > Resources), you’ll find the icons in question, which you can extract and handle just as you would any other image.