icoextract

icoextract is an icon extractor library for Windows executables (.exe/.dll/.mun). It also includes a thumbnailer script (exe-thumbnailer) for Linux desktops.

This project is inspired by extract-icon-py, icoutils, and others.

Installation

Dependencies

• Python 3.10+
• pefile
• Pillow - optional, for exe-thumbnailer
• nefile - optional, for Win16 / NE EXE support

Installing from source

You can install the project via pip: pip3 install icoextract[thumbnailer], or the Git repo at https://github.com/jlu5/icoextract

On Linux, you can enable the thumbnailer by copying exe-thumbnailer.thumbnailer into the thumbnailers directory:

• /usr/local/share/thumbnailers/ if you installed icoextract globally
• ~/.local/share/thumbnailers if you installed icoextract for your user only

The thumbnailer should work with any file manager that implements the Freedesktop Thumbnails Standard: this includes Nautilus, Caja, Nemo, Thunar (when Tumbler is installed), and PCManFM. KDE / Dolphin uses a different architecture and is not supported here.

Distribution packages

You can install icoextract from any of these distribution repositories:

Usage

Note: recent versions of Windows (Windows 10 1903+) have moved icons from system libraries (shell32.dll, etc.) into a new C:\Windows\SystemResources folder. icoextract can extract these .mun files natively, but the .dlls themselves no longer contain icons.

icoextract CLI

icoextract ships icoextract and icolist scripts to extract and list icon resources inside a file.

usage: icoextract [-h] [-V] [-n NUM] [-i ID] [-v] input output

Windows executable icon extractor.

positional arguments:
  input          input filename (.exe/.dll/.mun)
  output         output filename (.ico)

options:
  -h, --help     show this help message and exit
  -V, --version  show program's version number and exit
  -n, --num NUM  index of icon to extract
  -i, --id ID    resource ID of icon to extract
  -v, --verbose  enables debug logging

usage: icolist [-h] [-V] [-v] input

Lists group icons present in a program.

positional arguments:
  input          input filename

options:
  -h, --help     show this help message and exit
  -V, --version  show program's version number and exit
  -v, --verbose  enables debug logging

Using icoextract as a Library

from icoextract import IconExtractor, IconExtractorError

try:
    extractor = IconExtractor('/path/to/your.exe')

    # Export the first group icon to a .ico file
    extractor.export_icon('/path/to/your.ico', num=0)

    # Or read the .ico into a buffer, to pass it into other code
    data = extractor.get_icon(num=0)

    from PIL import Image
    im = Image.open(data)
    # ... manipulate a copy of the icon

    # In icoextract 0.2.0+, you can also extract icons by resource ID
    extractor.export_icon('/path/to/your.ico', resource_id=1234)

except IconExtractorError:
    # No icons available, or the icon resource is malformed
    pass