Convert .png image icon to .icns file (MacOS)

Question

What command can I type in my BASH shell to convert a given icon in png format into the icns image format required by Apple .app directories?

Answer 1

You can achieve this using the sips command.

First, store your icon as follows:

1. In an image file of size 1024 x 1024 pixels
2. In png format
3. In a file named Icon1024.png

Then execute the following commands

mkdir MyIcon.iconset
sips -z 16 16     Icon1024.png --out MyIcon.iconset/icon_16x16.png
sips -z 32 32     Icon1024.png --out MyIcon.iconset/[email protected]
sips -z 32 32     Icon1024.png --out MyIcon.iconset/icon_32x32.png
sips -z 64 64     Icon1024.png --out MyIcon.iconset/[email protected]
sips -z 128 128   Icon1024.png --out MyIcon.iconset/icon_128x128.png
sips -z 256 256   Icon1024.png --out MyIcon.iconset/[email protected]
sips -z 256 256   Icon1024.png --out MyIcon.iconset/icon_256x256.png
sips -z 512 512   Icon1024.png --out MyIcon.iconset/[email protected]
sips -z 512 512   Icon1024.png --out MyIcon.iconset/icon_512x512.png
cp Icon1024.png MyIcon.iconset/[email protected]
iconutil -c icns MyIcon.iconset
rm -R MyIcon.iconset

The result will be a file named MyIcon.icns that you can use to add to your .app directory.

Source: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/12306223/how-to-manually-create-icns-files-using-iconutil

Answer 2

You can do it like this:

sips -s format icns icon.png -o icon.icns

But please note that the image dimensions have to be multiple of 256, so you might also need to convert the original file to a supported dimension, e.g:

sips -s format icns -z 1024 1024 icon.png -o icon.icns