Symbols

Modern Material icons. Less maintenance.

Variable fonts, your own fonts and SVGs, and familiar Compose Multiplatform APIs.
Shrinkable vectors and Android drawables that help keep APKs small.

Replace the deprecated material-icons-extended library while keeping Compose's standard Icon. Add a pack and use typed names—without per-icon downloads or hand-maintained generated sources. Prebuilt packs need no Symbols Gradle plugin. Choose Outlined, Rounded, or Sharp Material Symbols, including filled vectors in every style. The catalog has 4,102 names covering 3,802 unique codepoints per style. Use the same Symbols root for generated icons from your own assets.

Releases are on Maven Central. Add the style you use:

repositories {
    google()
    mavenCentral()
}

kotlin {
    sourceSets.commonMain.dependencies {
        implementation("io.github.hlcaptain:symbols-material-vectors-rounded:2.2.0")
    }
}

For an Android-only module, put implementation(...) in dependencies.

See the full requirements when upgrading from 1.x.

Change the dependency and imports; the Icon call stays familiar:

import androidx.compose.material3.Icon
import io.github.hlcaptain.symbols.material.Icons
import io.github.hlcaptain.symbols.material.rounded.vectors.Home

Icon(Icons.Rounded.Home, contentDescription = "Home")

// AutoMirrored: opt-in mirroring for right-to-left layouts.
Icon(Icons.AutoMirrored.Rounded.Home, contentDescription = "Home")

// Filled: the filled style used by some legacy Material Icons.
Icon(Icons.Rounded.Filled.Home, contentDescription = "Home")

Symbols.Material.Rounded.Home is the equivalent unified namespace. Artwork, available styles, and some names differ; review the visual result when migrating.

Direct named vectors are cached on first use and allow R8 to remove unused icons independently. The artwork comes from Google's Material Symbols repository. Ordinary getters use FILL=0; .Filled selects FILL=1 in every style. See filled vector examples.

For runtime style selection, themed vectors follow MaterialSymbolsTheme while retaining fixed, unfilled geometry.

In a recorded Android fixture (September 2026), R8 and resource shrinking reduced the APK from 8.01 MB to 220 KB, retaining the used Symbols vector and native drawable while removing unused ones. These historical whole-APK figures include transitive code and resources; application savings vary. See shrinking boundaries.

Animate fill, weight, grade, or optical size without generating another vector. Add io.github.hlcaptain:symbols-material-rounded:2.2.0 for the Rounded variable font, then use your Material 3 motion scheme:

import androidx.compose.animation.core.animateFloatAsState
import androidx.compose.material3.MaterialExpressiveTheme
import androidx.compose.material3.MaterialTheme
import androidx.compose.runtime.Composable
import io.github.hlcaptain.symbols.Symbols
import io.github.hlcaptain.symbols.font.SymbolFontIcon
import io.github.hlcaptain.symbols.font.fontSettings
import io.github.hlcaptain.symbols.material.*

@Composable
fun FavoriteSymbol(selected: Boolean) {
    MaterialExpressiveTheme {
        val font = Symbols.Material.Rounded.font
        val fill = animateFloatAsState(
            targetValue = if (selected) 1f else 0f,
            animationSpec = MaterialTheme.motionScheme.defaultSpatialSpec<Float>(),
            label = "Favorite fill",
        )
        SymbolFontIcon(
            codePoint = Symbols.Material.Favorite.codePoint,
            font = font,
            fontSettings = { font.fontSettings(mapOf("FILL" to fill.value.coerceIn(0f, 1f))) },
            contentDescription = "Favorite",
            tint = MaterialTheme.colorScheme.primary,
        )
    }
}

Read animation state inside the producer to redraw without recomposing or laying out the fixed icon square. Clamping keeps spring overshoot within the font's valid range. Variable axes require Android API 26+; use a regular font or vector fallback on API 23–25. Runtime fonts ship as a whole font, with no per-glyph shrinking.

Bring a regular or variable icon font plus its codepoint manifest, or a flat directory of monochrome SVGs. Both produce the same typed ImageVector API:

plugins {
    id("io.github.hlcaptain.symbol-fonts") version "2.2.0"
}

symbolFonts {
    iconSet("AppIcons") {
        packageName.set("com.example.generated")
        style("Outline") {
            svgDirectory.set(layout.projectDirectory.dir("icons"))
            imageVectors()
        }
    }
}

Add io.github.hlcaptain:symbols-core:2.2.0 to your application dependencies. With icons/home.svg, import the generated properties and render it normally:

import androidx.compose.material3.Icon
import com.example.generated.AppIcons
import com.example.generated.outline.Home
import io.github.hlcaptain.symbols.Symbols

Icon(Symbols.AppIcons.Outline.Home, contentDescription = "Home")

For font input, replace svgDirectory with font.set(...) and codepoints.set(...); use axis(...) for a fixed variable-font instance. Add androidDrawables() or composeDrawables() when you need XML output. The generator guide covers setup and the supported SVG subset.

Custom runtime fonts can also expose live axes through the same SymbolFontIcon renderer.

Native drawable artifacts work with Views, XML, and Android's resource shrinker:

implementation("io.github.hlcaptain:symbols-material-drawables-outlined:2.2.0")

<ImageView
    android:layout_width="24dp"
    android:layout_height="24dp"
    android:contentDescription="@string/home"
    android:src="@drawable/material_symbols_outlined_home_ue9b2" />

Add -filled, -automirrored, or -automirrored-filled to the artifact name for an optional variant pack. Each pack contains one family and is selected independently. See variant dependencies and RTL setup.

Enable normal release shrinking to remove unused native resources:

android {
    buildTypes {
        release {
            isMinifyEnabled = true
            isShrinkResources = true
            proguardFiles(getDefaultProguardFile("proguard-android-optimize.txt"))
        }
    }
}

XML-only consumers support API 21+ with the documented toolchain.

For Res.drawable and painterResource, use symbols-material-compose-drawables-{outlined|rounded|sharp}. These packs ship one complete style as Android assets, which Android's resource shrinker does not prune. See resource usage and size trade-offs to choose your representation.

• Usage reference: artifacts, theming, mirroring, catalog lookup, and font axes.
• Runnable samples, generator, and custom fonts.
• Contributing, testing snapshots, and releases.

Symbols and its bundled Material Symbols assets are Apache-2.0 licensed. Material artwork comes from Google's Material Symbols; this project is independent and is not endorsed by Google. See third-party notices for exact asset versions and licenses, and security reporting for the private vulnerability process.