SFIcons

Generate icons in the style of macOS using Apple's SF Symbols. Perfect for your self-service system's catalogue (or at least perfect for mine). Available as both a native macOS GUI app and a command-line tool.

There are over 6,000 SF Symbols to choose from. To browse available symbol names, download the SF Symbols app from Apple.

Features

GUI App

• Icon Preview with live updates as you adjust settings
• Inspector Panel (toggle via toolbar) with collapsible sections:
  • Symbol -- choose an SF Symbol, set its colour style (Monotone, Gradient, or Palette), pick primary and secondary colours, adjust background colour, and control symbol size with a slider
  • Overlay -- add a secondary SF Symbol badge in any corner (Top Leading, Top Trailing, Bottom Leading, Bottom Trailing) with independent colour, background colour, drop shadow, and gradient controls
  • Advanced -- toggle drop shadow and background gradient on the main icon
  • Colour Palette -- 10 pre-defined colour palettes (Purple, Blue, Pastel, Kids, Spring, Retro, Earth, Green, and Space) that apply a coordinated set of colours and disable gradients for a clean look
• Export menu with two options:
  • Export as PNG -- save the rendered icon as a PNG image
  • Export Settings -- save all current settings as a JSON file
• Import Settings -- load a previously exported JSON settings file to restore a configuration
• Share -- share the icon via the macOS share sheet
• Reset to Defaults -- restore all settings to their original values
• Localised in English (en-CA, en, en-AU, en-GB) and French (fr, fr-CA)
• Settings are persisted between sessions via UserDefaults

CLI Tool (sficons)

The CLI uses the same rendering engine as the GUI, so output is identical.

Installing the symlink

Until version 2, the app was distributed with a PKG that included a script to create the symlink. I've decided to do away with that. If you want to use the CLI, please either call the full path /Applications/SFIcons.app/Contents/SharedSupport/sficons or add a symlink on your own.

#!/bin/zsh --no-rcs

symlink="/usr/local/bin/sficons"
appPath="/Applications/SFIcons.app/Contents/SharedSupport/sficons"

if [ -L "$symlink" ]; then
    echo "Symlink already exists. Nothing to do."
    exit 0
fi

ln -s "$appPath" "$symlink"

if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then
    echo "Symlink created successfully."
else
    echo "Failed to create symlink."
    exit 1
fi

exit 0

Usage of CLI

USAGE: sficons --symbol <symbol> --colour <colour> --bgcolour <bgcolour> --percentforsymbol <percentforsymbol> --output <output> [options]

Required Options

Flag	Description
-s, --symbol	SF Symbol name (e.g. externaldrive.connected.to.line.below)
-c, --colour, --color	Foreground colour in HEX (e.g. #FFFFFF)
-b, --bgcolour, --bgcolor	Background colour in HEX (e.g. #469DD4)
-p, --percentforsymbol	Symbol size as a percentage (e.g. 75)
-o, --output	Output file path (e.g. ~/Desktop/icon.png)

Optional Flags

Flag	Description
-S, --secondarycolour, --secondarycolor	Secondary foreground colour for Gradient/Palette styles
-y, --style	Symbol colour style: monotone (default), gradient, or palette
-O, --overlaysymbol	Overlay SF Symbol name (e.g. cat)
-C, --overlaycolour, --overlaycolor	Overlay symbol colour (default: #FFFFFF)
-B, --overlaybgcolour, --overlaybgcolor	Overlay background colour (default: #469DD4)
-P, --overlayposition	Overlay corner: bottomtrailing (default), bottomleading, toptrailing, topleading
-d, --dropshadow	Enable drop shadow on the icon
-g, --gradient	Enable background gradient
-D, --overlaydropshadow	Enable drop shadow on the overlay
-G, --overlaygradient	Enable gradient on the overlay background

Example

sficons \
  --symbol "externaldrive.connected.to.line.below" \
  --colour "#FFFFFF" \
  --bgcolour "#054460" \
  --percentforsymbol 75 \
  --dropshadow true \
  --gradient true \
  --output ~/Desktop/icon.png

Requirements

macOS 15.0 or later

Licence

Apache License 2.0

Credits

Built by Adam Anklewicz. Contributions welcome!