View Icons
Available for: Single icon and icon-library files (.ico, .exe, .dll, .scr, .cpl, .ocx and .icl files)

View Icons is a powerful icon-display and extraction/conversion tool. Icons can contain multiple images that cover a range of sizes and color-depths, and executable & icon library files can contain any number of icons. This tool displays all the images in an icon for all the icons contained in the selected file. You can extract individual icons, extract all icons, or save a single image from an icon as a bitmap, JPEG, PNG or icon file.

  • For single icon (.ico) files, right-click the file and choose View Icons from the ShellToys XP menu.

  • Executable files don't always contain icons, so the View Icons menu item will only be shown for executables that contain at least one icon. The number of icons is shown in brackets. Again, click the View Icons item.
The Icon Viewer window shows all the icons found in the selected file (for .ico files this will only be one). The images in each icon are listed from smallest to largest, and from lowest color-depth to highest. You can select icons by clicking them, or using the arrow keys. Right-click for options or choose from the main menu.

To view details of an icon, double-click it, or select it and press Alt+Enter. The Properties dialog shows the approximate size of the icon in bytes, the index number of the icon in the file, and the number of images contained in the icon, along with a list displaying each image and its details.

To extract an icon, select the icon to save, choose File, Save As and choose a name and location. An exact copy of the selected icon will be saved, including all its internal image formats.

To extract all the icons in the current file, choose File, Save All, and choose a folder to save the icons into. The files will have the names shown in the icons' captions plus an .ico extension. (For instance, if the caption is shell32.dll,15, the file will be saved as shell32.dll,15.ico)

To save a single image from an icon as an ICO, BMP or JPG file, select the icon containing the image you want to save, and choose File, Custom Export. The Custom Export dialog will be shown, letting you choose the image and file format to use.

To create a new icon containing only the image formats you want, select the icon containing the images you want to save, and choose File, Custom Export. In the Custom Export dialog, select the image formats you want to include by holding Ctrl as you click each image.

To open a different icon or library file, choose File, Open to select the file, or simply drag-and-drop the file into the Icon Viewer window. You can also double-click the filename-panel at the top of the window to select a new file.

See also:

  • Custom Export Dialog