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Sfsym – Export Apple SF Symbols as Vector SVG/PDF/PNG

Sfsym – Export Apple SF Symbols as Vector SVG/PDF/PNG

Apr 18, 2026 Design Tools
command-line sf symbols vector_export

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Sfsym – Export Apple SF Symbols as Vector SVG/PDF/PNG

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I found myself reaching for SF Symbols' 'Copy Image As…' quite often during agentic design sessions, so I made a command-line tool that the agent can use by itself. It exports Apple SF Symbols as SVG, PDF, or PNG.The vector paths come directly from macOS's symbol renderer. Internally it reaches a private ivar on NSSymbolImageRep to get the CUINamedVectorGlyph, draws into a CGPDFContext, then walks the PDF content stream back out as SVG `d` commands. The output matches what the system draws, rather than an approximation traced from rasters.A few things about it:- Every subcommand accepts `--json`, and `sfsym schema` returns a machine-readable description of the whole CLI. - Symbol enumeration reads the OS's Assets.car BOM tree, so the list of 8,300+ names stays current with macOS updates without a version table in the binary. - Each SVG `<path>` carries a `data-layer` attribute, so you can retheme in CSS without touching geometry.It's been saving me a bunch of clicking. Please let me know if you have any other ideas for it.

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