img2icns is a small utility that converts images to the ICNS format

I ran across this little utility by accident tonight, tried it out, and made it mine! It neatly supplements the various other freeware and shareware tools I’ve collected for managing icons, thumbnails, and the like. This tool takes an image–JPG, PNG, TIFF, or GIF–and makes a multi-part .icns file, which Mac OS X uses for storing system and application icons. By “multi-part,” I mean the .icns file stores multiple instances of the graphic in up to four different sizes. If you have the Mac OS X developer tools installed, you can open and work with .icns files using Apple’s free Icon Composer tool. Although img2icns doesn’t do a great job of expanding a tiny icon to the largest icon size (128×128 pixels), it’s great with shrinking larger images down to the tiny sizes (smallest is 16×16).

For my use, I’ve put img2icns in the Finder toolbar, so it’s very handy to use. It’s a droplet application, so you just drag images over it. img2icns then makes an .icns file in the same directory where the graphic resides, with the same name as the graphic but a different extension. You have one preference to worry about: Do you want the icons in an .icns file, or do you want img2icns to put the files in a directory? Now that’s simple!

Unlike some other tools that purport to do this, img2icns includes transparency from the image and makes the icon mask as well. This way, the icons come out with the fully transparent bits that you expect.

Update 11/27/06. This freeware was updated with a new look/feel and new icon… not much different in functionality, but it looks a whole lot better!

Version as tested: 0.4.