55 Free High Quality Icon Sets
We love free icons. We love to smash things. And we respect hard-working designers. Therefore we are regularly looking for talented artists and creative designers and we are glad to support them by showcasing their work in our magazine. If you are going to create an icon set and experience any problems releasing it or spreading the word — let us know, we may figure something out.
In the overview below we present 55 more excellent, free and professional icons for desktop and web design. Some of them can be used for both private and commercial projects. You may always use them for free in your private projects. Nevertheless, it is always worth to take a look at the license agreements — they can change from time to time.
You can also scan through the icons-related articles we’ve published before:
- 40 Professional Icon Sets For Free Download
to download some fresh professional icon goodies, - 35 (Really) Incredible Free Icon Sets
to spice up your posts with nice illustrations or enrich your desktop with outstanding dock icons, - Icons For Your Desktop and Icons For Your Web Designs
with high-quality free icons which you can use for your desktop and web-designs, - 20 Free And Fresh Icon Sets
with over 20 free beautiful sets and references to further free icon libraries, - and you can subscribe to our RSS-feed
as well.
Free Icons For Your Web Designs and Desktop
Function Icon Set
A set of 128 high-quality free icons for bloggers and designers to use in any projects; “social media” icons are included as well. Resolution: 48×48px.
Concept Icons .08
12 different icons in PNG format 256x256px. Designed by Roberto Abril Hidalgo.
Affel
Affel combines purple and black colors with some lighting and shadow details to make your computer look classy and as much special as it deserves. |Inside: 72 icons in PNG format with a resolution of 256×256 px. These icons may not be used in any way for commercial purposes.
Smultron Icon Pack
Smultron better icons is an icon updater set for Smultron. Requires Mac OS X 10.4 or later, Smultron 2.1.5.
Eico Studio Anniversary Icon Pack
16 crisp, sharp and beautiful icons released by the Eico Design Agency to celebrate its first anniversary. Available in .ico, .png and .icns-format in the resolution 128×128px.
Kidaubis 3D Icon – Blue series
The icon set with three icons (E-Mail, music box and tool box) available.
Beijing 2008 Icons
A large “olympic” high-quality set with over 20 related icons.
Jonas Rask Icons
An updated collection of various icons designed by Jonas Rask. We have featured Jonas in our previous posts; now the icons have been updated. Resolutions vary from 16×16px to 512×512px.
The Shield Icon Set
This set includes 4 files in resolutions 256×256px, 128×128px, 64×64px and 32×32px. Available in formats .ico and .png. Designed by Marvin Ristau.
Mac Icons
This set includes 5 .png-files in high resolutions. Designed in Illustrator CS.
Pure Icon Pack
Pure Icon Pack contains 14 high quality (256×256 pixels) icons; PNG and ICO formats. This package includes: CD Icon, Computer Icon, Folder Icon, DVD Icon, Internet Icon, Network Icon, Search Icon, USB Icon, ZIP Icon and others.
Mythique Design
16 icons for a messanger user interface. Png, resolutions: 16×16px to 256×256px..
Oxygen Icons Set
Over 1000 professional desktop icons designed for KDE, packed in one single pack and released under GPL.
Boxes Vista-like Icons
These icons are based on the new packaging for Windows Vista. 26 icons for various OS (13 icons in two categories: box with disc and without disc).Png & Ico format. Free for non-commercial use.
Smashing Royal Icon Set
The set contains 6 “royal” icons which you can use for private and commercial projects, blogs and web-sites for free — without any restrictions whatsoever. The icons are available in .ico and .png-formats in resolutions 32×32px, 48×48px, 64×64px and 128×128px.
Google and Facebook icons
Most of the icons featured here have been specifically made for the Fluid app for OS X Leopard. Sure you can use them for other things, but that’s what they were created for and that’s why each download includes an appl.icns file. This file is to be placed in its Fluid-generated application counterpart’s Resources folder. Designed by Chris Ivarson.
Fruity Apples
9 .png and .icns (Leopard ready : 512×512 px), 2 Bonus and 1 Wallpaper (2560×1600 px).
I Love “Blondes” Beer Icon
512x512px in png and icns.
Document Icons
512x512px in png and icns.
Niepces Camera Obscura Icons
These desktop icons show the Camera Obscura as it was used by Nicephore Niepce by 1826 or 1827 in an Aperture and iPhoto style and are intended as an homage to him. Mac + Win + Linux + iContainer. Leopard ready (512×512). Including 7 icons intended to replace Aperture or iPhoto, Aperture Library, iPhoto Library, Aperture Vault, Aperture Project and your picture folder.
Facebook User Interface Icons
25 Facebook ui icons in a high res and vector form… with slight adherences to the tango specification.
Cyberduck
Icon replacement set, resolution: 512×512px. Application icon, document icons and download icons as well as bookmark drawer and bookmarks icon are available. Format: .dmg.
Autumn Breeze Icons
6 Icons for Windows in 8 Sizes. My Computer, My Pictures, Dustbin Full, Dustbin Empty, CD and one Icon for your fav. Design Software.
Web Icons Pack
7 desktop icons for Windows and OS X. Available for Windows and Mac.
Whistle Icons
What about using whistle for a search box? DesignFreak does exactly that.
Chemical Icon Pack
Chemical Icon Set celebrates the creative chemical in our brains where all our creative projects come from in 4 Beautiful icons for your creative project or developer folders in neon chemical colors. Requirements: Mac OS X 10.1 or later.
Small icons
ORB Icons
10 basic user interface icons available in the resolution 16×16px, 32×32px and 128×128px. Designed by Alexy Goncharenko.
Online Shop Icons (the link was removed due to copyright infringement)
9 icons in the format .psd. Registration is required to download the icons.
eCommerce Icons
32 free icons to use or remix in your eCommerce projects complete with master SVG file.
BKdesign Icons Pack 1 (Link removed due to copyright infringement)
Some professional icon sets designed by the Chinese design agency Bottlebaby are available for free download.
BKdesign Icons Pack 1 (Link removed due to copyright infringement)
Some professional icon sets designed by the Chinese design agency Bottlebaby are available for free download.
Fugue icon set
358 icons (16×16px) are included in PNG format. The icons are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license.
Accessibility icon set
This set includes 9 icons one can use to display accessibility features or address accessibility issues. Released under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Germany, when used backlink is required.
Heart and Ice Icon Packs
Icons in both icon sets are available in resolutions 256×256, 6 PNGs in the first package, 8 PNGs in the second package.
Files icon set
A large set of various filetypes in resolutions 16×16, 24×24, 32×32, 48×48, 64×64, 72×72, 96×96, 128×128. Format: ico.
Weather conditions
49 Icons 128×128 dedicated for Mobydock’s set of weather conditions or any other similar widget.
40 Image Editing Icons
“Some smiling lips, a camera lens, some vortex colour, a crop tool, a TV icon, and plenty more.” All icons are available within an Adobe Illustrator CS2 file (10.1 Mb).
Keynote Objects
The package combines 100 easy to use and attractive objects. The background of all objects is transparent and can be used on any colored background. Each object can be changed in size, rotated, increased or decreased in opacity, fitted with shadows or even overlapped with one another to create extra effects. Keynote Objects are compatible with Keynote, iWeb, Pages, Microsoft PowerPoint and Word.
Milky Icon Set
A large vector icon set designed by Frexy design studio includes Format: png. Resolution: 256×256px.
Blogging Icons
This set is designed specifically for bloggers. There are total 12 shiny and modern icons for your blogs. It comes with 3 sizes, 24×24, 36×36 and 48×48 in png format. Blogging Icons Set is released under Creative Commons License, please feel free to use it on your personal and commercial projects.
Ferrari Gauge
Download includes iContainer (3 icons). Resolution: 512×512px. For personal use only.
iMac Evolution Icons
The evolution of the iMac contains 6 different iMac icons, including the first iMac from 1998 and the newest model from 2007.
Tasty Icons
Two tasty icons of coffee goodness. These two freebies come in the following sizes and formats: 48 x 48 px; 128 x 128 px; 256 x 256 px; 512 x 512 px; PNG (transparent backgrounds); CNS; ICO.
Keyfob
Formats: .icns, .png, 128×128px.
Envelope Icons
This set features a variety of different envelopes and folders of different sizes which we foresee being extremely useful for many print and web design projects.
Further icons
- Free Filetypes Icons
A review of free filetypes icons by Zeusbox Studio. - Afterglow Icons
A collection of various icons available for Mac. Among them – a New Zealand icon set which includes 27 mini icons. - Watiworks offers 12 small Mac OS X icon sets for free download.
- Monochrom offers 22 unique icon sets in retro and vintage look. Among them are stickers, basic shapes and some really strange icons.
- Iconlook is an icon search engine.
- Everydayicons offers 9 basic icon sets with folders, boxes and notes.
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We are regularly posting fresh high-quality freebies — icons, fonts, wallpapers, themes and snippets — if you don’t want to miss some really tasty goodies please subscribe to our RSS-feed .
Andy
July 2nd, 2008 4:55 pmHmmmmmm..icons :-)
Eric Martin
July 2nd, 2008 4:57 pmWow! Very impressive collection here.
Rype
July 2nd, 2008 5:02 pmThere was a couple of these sets that look like some iStock icons I’ve seen. I wonder if they bought some extended right or just ripping them off. Still, an awesome list!
Justin
July 2nd, 2008 5:06 pmI want to make these.
sunil
January 31st, 2010 7:44 pmHey i came through one of my guy that this site icongab.com thave load of free high quality icons i checked it really amazing set of collection. Just go grab those icons…… Cheers…………….
Justin
July 2nd, 2008 5:06 pmI want to make these
Clarizza
July 2nd, 2008 5:50 pmBeijing 2008 Icons are ingenious i’m totally downloading it (:
@ Rype
I also saw similar ones like iStocks. oh well at least they are sharing
ahnShev | andrisetiawan
July 2nd, 2008 6:22 pmWooow…
I love it soooooo muuuchhh!!
thanks for the list.^^
furley
July 2nd, 2008 6:32 pmawesome!
Eric
July 2nd, 2008 6:35 pmicon overload! I love it :D
Mark
July 2nd, 2008 6:39 pmThat is a lot of icons!
BenRulz
July 2nd, 2008 7:11 pmgreat icons sets…. amazing …
trendez
July 2nd, 2008 7:13 pmTasty!!!
gr8pixel
July 2nd, 2008 7:50 pmwow… i wanna eat em!!!!
Ashish Bogawat
July 2nd, 2008 8:19 pmThe Online Shop Icons & BKdesign icons look deceptively similar to a series that is available on istockphoto.com (http://www.istockphoto.com/file_search.php?action=file&lightboxID=2786120). I’m wondering whether the authors are the same or the icons have been ripped off.
gaurav chandra
July 2nd, 2008 8:23 pmhmmmmm. delicious. i always want to make some like them but i think i am not that goood. :-(
Shnyx
July 2nd, 2008 8:25 pmwow……awsum……..
Justin
July 2nd, 2008 8:35 pmAlternatively, it could be the original author giving them away. I don’t think iStock requires exclusive reseller rights.
shashi arya
July 2nd, 2008 8:45 pmthis is too much……… luv it :)
Blair McBride
July 2nd, 2008 9:04 pmNice!
But… why is every monitor a Mac monitor? They still make other ones too, you know…
evan
July 2nd, 2008 9:04 pmI’m pretty sure the BK Design icons are ripoffs… Check out the “Satin” icon sets by Scott Dunlap:
http://www.istockphoto.com/file_search.php?action=file&lightboxID=2786120
brianbroken
July 2nd, 2008 9:08 pm20
Shyamali
July 2nd, 2008 9:17 pmWow.!!!!! Amazing….!
Nitin Garg
July 2nd, 2008 9:24 pmgreat compilation as always.
But i don’t think that some of them should fall under icon category, an icon should be visible even in smaller version and some of them are too detailed for that, so they are just a well finsihed beautiful graphics but surely not icons.
shira
July 2nd, 2008 10:02 pmFew months ago I bought the “BKdesign Icons Pack 2″ sets at istock photo.
How come it’s free now??
scout
July 2nd, 2008 10:15 pmhow to download the whistle icons?? that page’s all in foreign language!!!!!!!
Sandie Sørensen
July 2nd, 2008 10:33 pmWell… As (almost) always: Very inspiring!
But as exited I am – I’m missing something everytime I see your collection of icons.
The icons are ALWAYS for desktop use, and I have a whole other approach- or idea.
I look for icons, that I can use on my portefolio-site.
I’m taking about icons that symbolize: pencil-drawings, aquarelle, acryllics, photoshop-works, illustrator-works, flash-works, website-design, photography and so on. Creative motives…
Am I the only one, that miss that?
Acctually I’ve made a couple og icons my self in the past, but everytime I change the look of my homepage, I need to make new ones, and it’s a big job.
So here is a question:
Like you have the amazing desktop calendar of the month, perhaps you-Smashing Magazine- could ask your viewers to contribute with 100% free icons perhaps in first round with symbols for creative portefolios?
I promise, I vill contribute my selv with beige and creme icons!!
:) Well. Just a suggestion.
Sandie
Steve
July 2nd, 2008 10:54 pmSome of those are rips from iStockphoto and StockXpert.
speedcu
July 2nd, 2008 11:09 pmvery useful – thanks a lot!
David Hellmann
July 2nd, 2008 11:13 pmA great collection of icons!
kemie
July 2nd, 2008 11:15 pmseveral of your featured icon sets are stolen from royalty-free icon sets on istockphoto.com and are being distributed illegally, particularly the BKdesigners packs and the “online shop icons”.
Just beacuse you can download it for free does not mean it’s legal.
Please screen your featured sets more thoroughly.
D. Carreira
July 2nd, 2008 11:27 pmThanks! Great collection of fantastic icons here!
Martin Berglund
July 2nd, 2008 11:28 pm@evan: You are absolutely right on that note. The Online Shop Icons are a part of the Satin Icons, and this is Set 9 from iStockphoto.
A quick translation of the site that provides that icon pack in the list above states that Who is the author of icons, is unknown, but we know better now ;)
Martin Berglund
July 2nd, 2008 11:31 pmMy comment above was directed to evan in comment 19 ;o)
Pepa
July 2nd, 2008 11:34 pmguys, you keep me amazed every day. I’m hitting F5 like nuts every 5 minutes when awaiting for your new article :-)
Jean-Baptiste
July 2nd, 2008 11:42 pmThanks for this selection ! :-)
Dedail
July 2nd, 2008 11:58 pmIch bin immer wieder erstaunt, wieviele schöne Beispiele ihr immer findet. Danke.
Lukas
July 3rd, 2008 12:19 amReally cool, thanks.
Jurjen
July 3rd, 2008 12:28 amSweet!
dhoko
July 3rd, 2008 12:40 amVery nice set
STK
July 3rd, 2008 12:46 amgreat stuff … i love smashmag …
pingoole
July 3rd, 2008 12:49 amJust WOW!!! thanks
Bart
July 3rd, 2008 12:53 amThanks a lot!
sunny beach
July 3rd, 2008 1:02 amThis a great collection of great looking icons, also my first recomendation by the Digg recommendation engine. I think i’m already liking it..
liam
July 3rd, 2008 1:35 am@Pepa You could always Subscribe to the RSS feed, that will update you as soon as there are any updates.
Thanks for featuring my Function Icon Set, It’s a huge honour.
srinivas
July 3rd, 2008 1:40 amExcellent Collection
thibaud
July 3rd, 2008 1:59 amsimply AWSOME !
mcrury
July 3rd, 2008 3:03 amwooow… so huge..
omg, sleepless again…
David
July 3rd, 2008 3:22 amSTOLEN ICONS!
BK stole from here:
http://www.istockphoto.com/file_search.php?action=file&lightboxID=2786120
Come on smashing… be more careful :(
Mr Self Destruct
July 3rd, 2008 3:49 amI’d love to see some tutorials on some of the techniques used to make these amazing 3D icons.
dragoshell
July 3rd, 2008 5:50 amnice icon sets :D
i love the weather ones
mau
July 3rd, 2008 6:03 amWow.. this is an impressive list guys! Well done!
JakeT
July 3rd, 2008 6:06 amI keep waiting for some well-designed icons for desktop use at very small sizes. Seems all the great icons nowadays roll at big, Mac-style sizes. I’m not interested in:
a) big buttons anywhere on my desktop
b) using large files (wrt disk/memory space) for decoration
Unfortunately, most of the new icons I see (like most of the ones in this collection), are designed to be gigantic and don’t scale down to something like 16×16 well. These icons are gorgeous, but I don’t see them being that useful.
Dave Bruno
July 3rd, 2008 6:34 amNike doesn’t make ping-pong paddles?
Toni Trivković
July 3rd, 2008 6:36 amthanks, very long & cool icons list :)
Jasper Kennis
July 3rd, 2008 7:05 amI’ve been waiting for this sort of posts! Great work S!
STPo
July 3rd, 2008 7:18 am=’)
Nice shit SM !
mikemike
July 3rd, 2008 7:40 amhuh? A bunch of these were on the last series.
bünyaz
July 3rd, 2008 7:41 amVery nice set thanks
Alan Rice
July 3rd, 2008 8:15 amI’m currently working on an icon set (very early development) but it’s basically the same types of icons as the silk icon set by famfamfam but bigger and redesigned. Check it out: http://is.gd/LgS
Thanks,
Alan.
me
July 3rd, 2008 8:23 amCool icons i always use my dsktop icons BIG AND SHINY !!!
nerdski
July 3rd, 2008 8:50 amThats some quality icons right there ;)
Scott Dunlap
July 3rd, 2008 9:25 amI’m the designer of the Satin icons up at istock. The Online Shop icons and most of those from BK Design are stolen from that series.
I see smashingmag removed the text link to BK Design, but the preview image is still up and it still links to the site. Please take them down. And the Online Shop icons as well.
Just to clarify, I am exclusive at iStock and can’t sell (or even give away) those icons because of my agreement with iStock. And even if an extended license was purchased for those sets, that does not allow them to be resold. This is blatant ripping.
Finally, thanks to everyone that notified me and commented about this. I really appreciate it! I put a lot of effort into these sets and it kills me to see them stolen.
Rachel Everett
August 5th, 2010 4:26 pmHI Scott,
What’s your website or email address? I’d like to contact you about a large icon project.
Thanks,
Rachel
Ivan Nikolic
July 3rd, 2008 9:35 amGreat collection, as always :)
Vitaly Friedman & Sven Lennartz
July 3rd, 2008 9:37 amScott Dunlap, thank you, the links were removed.
adelle
July 3rd, 2008 9:40 amGreat list – although yes I have seen some of these on previous smashing lists. You missed a great set of new icons that came out yesterday from wefunction.com you can check em out here: http://wefunction.com/2008/07/function-free-icon-set/
tigga76
July 3rd, 2008 9:57 amThat is a lot to deal with. *head explodes
Dee
July 3rd, 2008 10:01 amWow, very impressive! Thanks so much!
Farid Abdulhadi
July 3rd, 2008 10:36 amReally nice collection of icons and graphics.
Thanks guys, keep up the good work.
kile
July 3rd, 2008 10:40 amthank you very much :)
elik
July 3rd, 2008 11:02 am1ST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
WOOHOOOOO!!!!!!!!
Echilon
July 3rd, 2008 11:57 amThanks for another load of great icons. :)
Juancho
July 3rd, 2008 1:10 pmMe gusta!
Andrew Davidson
July 3rd, 2008 1:57 pmCan’t forget my own submission, Free Replacement Apache Icons. Might not be as glossy or detailed as some of the above (excellent) examples, but the 85 PNG files come in 32×32 and 128×128, and offer a designed alternative to the generic Apache Icons most web servers install by default.
Shaytaan
July 3rd, 2008 1:58 pm72. elik, woot woot, 2nd.
By the way very nice and usefull list, thanks alot guys..
designmaschine
July 3rd, 2008 2:22 pmYeah- new icons for our pleasure!
Very very useful.
Toby Lynch
July 3rd, 2008 2:54 pmNice!
Diego
July 3rd, 2008 3:10 pmFantástica, enooorme Seleccion!!
MerovingiaN
July 3rd, 2008 5:28 pminspiring collection!
desperAte student
July 3rd, 2008 11:45 pmdamn! that was great!
JayD
July 4th, 2008 3:33 amI really love those “Beijing 2008 Icons” made by kidcomic..
I´d love to use them in a commercial project.
Since i do not understand any chinese, i´d like to know more about the terms of use…
Thx alot!
Dawid Gurzynski
July 4th, 2008 4:01 amWow, nice Sets. Thanks a lot.
Harnods
July 4th, 2008 5:29 amreally2 nice…
Santiago
July 4th, 2008 6:35 amI can only say:
WOW!
Great, you are the great!!!
Thanks a lot, really
goa
July 4th, 2008 2:58 pmAwesome!! thanks ;)
iYangyi
July 4th, 2008 6:48 pmGreat, that’s very nice.
Thanks.
Wahidin Wong
July 4th, 2008 9:03 pmGreat icon pack collections.
siubie
July 5th, 2008 3:20 amthanks solve my problems :D
karwany
July 5th, 2008 3:55 amReally Nice,Thanks
lahure_dai
July 5th, 2008 7:24 amman this is quite a collection. it took me around 10 hours plus to download all of them ;)
craZed
July 5th, 2008 8:50 amRealy great collection ! THANX !
Jseen
July 5th, 2008 9:40 pmSimply amazing icon collection. You guys are really amazing in providing these resources.
Duncan
July 7th, 2008 2:23 amthis really inspiring…
BloGemini
July 7th, 2008 8:54 amVery NICE!!
ilovecolors
July 7th, 2008 8:03 pmI can’t believe that not one of these sets has a image icon and a video icon in the same set. Very dissapointing, you can’t expect someone to add an icon from one set and that one from another set…
CapellaDG
July 7th, 2008 8:10 pmGreat icons – thanks!
Bonnie
July 8th, 2008 9:00 amThanks – these are great!
Shahjee - LayoutPrince
July 9th, 2008 4:13 amBeautiful stuff here ….
Ummmmmmmmmmmmaaaa !
Deepak Sharma
July 9th, 2008 4:54 amIt is really very nice. Thanks very much.
GIVISION | Jiri Mocicka
July 10th, 2008 1:36 amReally good work especially Ferrari stuff as well as Beijing 2008 Icons. I like the glow effect on the top of helmet.
Nice work.
GON
Lorenzo
July 11th, 2008 1:44 amWorderful icons!
Congralulations!