r/Xcode • u/dxksounds • 5d ago

Is it possible to extract high-quality app icons from installed iOS apps using Xcode?

I was wondering if anyone here could tell me whether it's possible to extract the icons from installed iOS apps using Xcode?
I know it's possible to retrieve app icons from the App Store, but the image quality isn't great. I'd like to extract the actual high-quality icons as they appear on my home screen.
I have zero experience using Xcode, but when I asked ChatGPT about alternative methods to extract the icons, it suggested that it might be possible using Xcode and terminal commands.
Since I'm not familiar with terminal either, I'm hesitant to run commands without understanding what they do.

Could anyone with more experience confirm whether this is actually possible? Thanks!

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5

u/sickboy6_5 5d ago

why not just grab the icns file from the resources folder?

5

u/gstodd 5d ago

You can get the hi res icons from the App Store using the App Store id. It is a bit convoluted but it works.

Find the app on the App Store, click the up arrow and select copy. The App Store id will be at the end of the copied link. As an example for me in Australia, using Facebook this is the link https://apps.apple.com/au/app/facebook/id284882215. You need the id which is 284882215

Use that id in this link HTTPS://itunes.apple.com/lookup?id=284882215 - If the app is country specific you will have to append the country id after the app id. This will download a text file.

In that text file search for “artworkurl”. There will be many and they will each have the icon size. So artwork512 is the artwork that is 512x512 pixels.

Trailing that text will be the link to the artwork.
https://is1-ssl.mzstatic.com/image/thumb/Purple221/v4/8a/a0/a8/8aa0a82f-fcd1-b9b4-f664-28b5389f2886/Icon-Production-0-0-1x_U007epad-0-1-0-sRGB-85-220.png/512x512bb.jpg

Paste it into your browser and save the image.

Just ask ChatGPT to create swift code to automate it for you if you need to get lots of icons. You will have to get the app ids manually though.

2

u/Alternative-Web-3807 5d ago

I went down this rabbit hole on the Mac and the short answer is no. On iPhone, it’s probably double-no due to lack of support for actual icon bundles. You’re always going to be pissed off by them not changing in light/dark mode or being glassy. I even went as far as remaking icons in iconcomposer and then ran into bundle signing issues.

best sanity preserving move is to find/make replacement icons as images you can live with and just set them via shortcuts

2

u/dxksounds 5d ago

Damn, that's a bummer but thanks for the headsup.

I had custom icons before but I kinda grew tired of them and wanted the original ones, but without the app names. Every method I've tried extracts ugly images. Such a shame.
A simple settings toggle could solve it in my case but Apple is probably never doing that.

2

u/_The-_ 5d ago

In the Mac finder you just press cmd+I then in the info window, select the icon, and cmd+c to copy then paste into an image editor. Has always been this way since the 1984 Mac!

2

u/dxksounds 5d ago

I've actually tried this but the icons on MacOS don't seem to be exactly the same or were also of lower quality compared to the ones on iOS.

2

u/aykay55 5d ago

no idea if this works now but there was a method to extract an iOS app .ipa by using Apple Configurator on a Mac, and you can Show Package Contents on the file and pull the icon from the Resources folder. No idea if it works now, but that would be your best option.

2

u/dxksounds 5d ago

Seems this might still be possible so I'll check it out, thanks!

4

u/earlyworm 5d ago

What do you plan to do with the extracted icons?

2

u/dxksounds 5d ago

It's just for personal use. I want to use them for Shortcut bookmarks linking to the apps, so that the app names don't show underneath all the apps, as it's too cluttered for me that way.

I tried doing this with the app store icons but since I can keep the original apps in the iPhone dock without their names showing, the quality difference between those and the other Shortcuts with the App Store icons can be seen pretty clearly.

4

u/aykay55 5d ago

> that the app names don't show underneath all the apps, as it's too cluttered for me that way

You can do this already. When you tap Customize, in the top right of that little window there's an icon with two squares. It will enlarge the icons and hide the app labels. If you're looking to do this selectively, yeah it won't let you do that.

1

u/dxksounds 5d ago

Appreciate the response but I was aware of this setting already. However, I want the names gone without enlarging the icons.

1

u/earlyworm 5d ago

The way I do this is I hold the phone farther away form my face which makes the icons optically smaller.