icoextract

Extract icons from Windows executables into ICO files

TLDR

Extract the first icon group from an executable

$ icoextract [path/to/input.exe] [path/to/output.ico]

Extract from a DLL or a Windows .mun resource file

$ icoextract [path/to/shell32.dll.mun] [path/to/output.ico]

Extract a specific icon by index (0-based)

$ icoextract -n [1] [path/to/input.exe] [path/to/output.ico]

Extract an icon by resource ID

$ icoextract -i [32512] [path/to/input.exe] [path/to/output.ico]

Run with debug logging

$ icoextract -v [path/to/input.exe] [path/to/output.ico]

Print version

$ icoextract -V

SYNOPSIS

icoextract [-n index] [-i id] [-v] input output

icoextract reads icon resources from Windows Portable Executable (PE) files and writes them as a Windows ICO. It also understands Windows 10+ .mun system-resource files, where icons that used to live in `shell32.dll` and similar libraries were moved. An optional nefile extra adds Win16 New Executable (NE) support.The same project ships icolist, which prints every icon group in a file so you can pick an index or resource ID before extracting, and exe-thumbnailer, a FreeDesktop thumbnailer for Linux file managers.Output is always ICO data. If the destination path ends in .png, .jpg, or .jpeg, icoextract still writes ICO bytes and prints a warning; convert the ICO afterwards if you need another format.Requires Python 3.10 or newer and pefile.

PARAMETERS

input

Windows executable to read: .exe, .dll, or .mun

output

Destination .ico path

-n index, --num index

0-based index of the icon group to extract (default 0)

-i id, --id id

Resource ID of the icon group (integer or string)

-v, --verbose

Enable debug logging

-V, --version

Print the program version and exit

-h, --help

Show usage

INSTALL

sudo dnf install python3-icoextract

sudo pacman -S icoextract

nix profile install nixpkgs#icoextract

CAVEATS

The default --num 0 extracts the first group only. A missing index or resource ID raises an error. Recent Windows system DLLs often contain no icons; extract the matching .mun under `C:\Windows\SystemResources` instead. Win16 NE files need the optional nefile extra. This is a Python CLI (`icoextract.scripts.extract`), not ImageMagick convert.

HISTORY

Written by James Lu (MIT License), first released in 2019. Inspired by extract-icon-py and icoutils. Version 0.3.0 (2026-06-06) added Win16 NE extraction via nefile and string resource IDs.

RESOURCES

Source code · Documentation