Show HN: sfsym — Export Apple SF Symbols as Vector SVG/PDF/PNG

What it is

A new command‑line tool, sfsym, lets macOS developers and designers export Apple’s SF Symbols as SVG, PDF, or PNG. The vector paths come directly from macOS’s symbol renderer, so the output matches the geometry the system draws. No Xcode project. No redraw. No runtime dependency on the SF Symbols app. Want a clean SVG for a mockup or a pixel‑perfect PDF for a design handoff? This promises to shave off a tedious step — and fast.

How it works and how to use it

sfsym ships as a prebuilt universal binary (runs on macOS 13 Ventura or later) and is also available via a Homebrew tap or from source. It infers format from file extensions and supports palette, multicolor, hierarchical and monochrome rendering modes, per‑layer colors, size scaling, and PNG output at 2× pixel density. There’s even JSON output for automation and a batch mode for streaming multiple exports. Handy features: color parsing accepts hex and Apple system color names, alpha is preserved in SVG, and PNG sizing maps points to pixels predictably — small details that designers will appreciate.

Caveats and legal limits

A couple of important warnings. First: SF Symbols are Apple property; their license permits use only in artwork and mockups for apps that run on Apple platforms — don’t toss these into an Android app or a generic website. Second: it has been reported that sfsym reaches into a private ivar on NSSymbolImageRep to access the underlying vector glyph (CUINamedVectorGlyph). That trick has been stable across several macOS releases, but it’s private API territory, so future OS updates could break the tool. The repo’s author says sfsym will fail fast rather than silently produce incorrect output — so use it, but use it with your eyes open.

Sources: github.com/yapstudios, Hacker News