Icons are like eye candy… Without icons we would have a difficult time navigating our computers. Icons provide us with the ability to relate a function with a small graphic. Once that “function to graphic” relationship is established and stored (in our brains) we can quickly carry out the function by mouse clicking on the icon without having to read any text. Whomever came up with the icon concept on computers should be applauded.
When we start up our computers, icons are visible everywhere; on the Start Menu, on the Desktop, in the System Tray, etc… Did you know there are icons on your computer that are not visible and are actually packed inside file types such as EXE, DLL, OCX, CPL (to name a few). For whatever reason, this always fascinated me and I actually know of ways to pull those icons out of these files to use for other purposes. I am not going to go into those “ways” due the explanation would be quite lengthy and boring; HOWEVER, I will tell you of a very small program that you can run that will do all of the work for you. The program is called IconsExtract.
The IconsExtract utility scans the files and folders on your computer, and extract the icons and cursors stored in EXE, DLL, OCX, CPL, and in other file types. You can save the extracted icons to ICO files (or CUR files for cursors), or copy the image of a single icon into the clipboard.
To use this puppy, and I mean puppy (only 52K) in size, just download and run. No install is required and it is completely portable. IconsExtract will do all of the work for you. Just point the app to a folder and this puppy will hunt. Once it locates icons, they will be displayed in a nice order where the icons can be saved to your computer (or copied to the Windows clipboard).
When performing the hunt for icons, there are other options available in IconsExtract such as: Include only icons with specific image size and Include only icons with specific color depth.
Nice little app. Useful. Fun to play with. Oh, I failed to mention, IconsExtract will find and extract cursors as well.
post to jaanix
[ CLICK HERE TO LEAVE A COMMENT ]
Now that’s nerdy. Are you the one who told me about findicons.com?
WordDreams,
Just gave me a good laugh here : ) Thanks… Yep, findicons.com was on here and I have another one I may post tomorrow.
Rick
That’s a fun website. I’m looking forward to your next one.
WordDreams,
I was wrong in telling you about “findicons” being on here. I checked the site and did not find “findicons”. Did find “iconfinder”… Therefore “findicons” is another one.
I will do a post on that one. Thank you for bringing this forward here.
Rick
On the other hand, I might have mixed mine up with yours. All’s good. Browsing the internet is so much fun.
[...] nice icon search engine was brought to my attention as a result of yesterday’s article (titled: How To Find Icons Hidden Inside of Files) that I want to share with you. Following yesterday’s article the author of the blog, Word [...]
I’m playing with the icons now
. Can I delete those with duplicates? Thanks!
Pochp,
I wouldn’t delete them…
Rick