What is a .ICNS file?
ICNS holds an app icon at many sizes for macOS. Created by Apple.
- Did you know
- macOS apps store their icon, from tiny to huge, in a single ICNS file.
- The ICNS format arrived with Mac OS X in 2001, succeeding the resource-fork icons of classic Mac OS.
- It later gained @2x Retina variants, and its largest icons are stored using PNG or JPEG 2000 compression rather than raw pixels.
- What Analyser reads
- Decode and preview extra still-image formats in pure JavaScript - Truevision TGA, QOI, Netpbm (PPM/PGM/PBM), PCX, farbfeld, WBMP, XBM/XPM, Sun Raster and SGI are fully rendered - and read header metadata from codec-heavy formats: Radiance HDR, DirectDraw Surface (DDS) game textures, OpenEXR, JPEG 2000, JPEG XR, EPS/PostScript, Windows WMF/EMF metafiles, Apple ICNS icons, CUR/ANI cursors, MNG and Lottie animations.
- Depth of analysis
- .ICNS is an identification-grade format: Analyser recognises it from its bytes and decodes the header metadata it carries, rather than opening it in a full viewer. Formats that do get a full viewer are marked "Full" on the formats page.
- Open a .ICNS file
- Drag a .ICNS file onto the Analyser home page (or tap to pick one). It is identified entirely in your browser - nothing is uploaded, there is no account, and it works offline once installed.