How to extract the icon from a . exe file using python?

Question

I simply came to need to have an image file . ico extracted from a file . exe and do not even know how to start. How can I do this?

Answer 1

According to that answer, you can use the code below. I tested it here and it worked perfectly.

Code:

import win32ui
import win32gui
import win32con
import win32api

ico_x = win32api.GetSystemMetrics(win32con.SM_CXICON)
ico_y = win32api.GetSystemMetrics(win32con.SM_CYICON)

large, small = win32gui.ExtractIconEx("C:\\Program Files (x86)\\foobar2000\\foobar2000.exe",0)
win32gui.DestroyIcon(small[0])

hdc = win32ui.CreateDCFromHandle(win32gui.GetDC(0))
hbmp = win32ui.CreateBitmap()
hbmp.CreateCompatibleBitmap(hdc, ico_x, ico_x)
hdc = hdc.CreateCompatibleDC()

hdc.SelectObject(hbmp)
hdc.DrawIcon((0,0), large[0])

hbmp.SaveBitmapFile( hdc, 'icon.bmp')

Output:

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If you want to better understand how it works, I suggest you go into the documentation of the imported libraries and see what methods are used:

• win32api

  • .GetSystemMetrics()

• win32con

  • .SM_CXICON()

  • .SM_CYICON()

• win32gui

  • .ExtractIconEx()

  • .DestroyIcon()

• win32ui

  • .CreateDCFromHandle()

  • .CreateBitmap()

  • .CreateCompatibleBitmap()

  • .CreateCompatibleDC()

  • .SelectObject()

  • .DrawIcon()

  • .SaveBitmapFile()

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To convert the generated image to .bmp for .ico, you can use the Pillow, as in this example:

Code:

from PIL import Image

filename = 'icon.bmp'

img = Image.open(filename)

img.save('logo.ico')

Output: