u/Ikryanov

I’m Vladimir. I’m a software engineer. In our company we often develop desktop apps for internal needs and prototyping. And every time I bump into the same problem: how do I make an icon for the macOS app I have just built?

I could use the existing icon generators, but they are basically just image converters. You upload an existing image, and the tool generates the required icon sizes and formats from it.

But I don’t have an image, and I’m not a designer. Asking designers to create an icon is not always an option.

I wanted something that could help me actually create an icon. Something where I can describe an idea, iterate on it over several rounds, experiment with materials, lighting, composition, and gradually arrive at an icon that feels like a real native macOS app icon.

Since I’m an engineer, I built a small tool that allows generating a macOS app icon using AI. It’s completely free and open source, so other engineers building desktop apps for macOS can use it too.

The app lets you generate the app icons from prompts, refine them conversationally ("make it more metallic", "simplify the shape", "add glass effect", etc.), and export the final icon in the *.icns format (you can just put it into your macOS app bundle) along with a folder containing the icon in different dimensions.

There are no subscriptions, no watermarking, no credits system, and the source code is fully available on GitHub.

Note 1: the app requires an OpenAI API key. I tried to use local models to generate images, but none of them can produce images with quality similar to Nano Banana 2 or ChatGPT.

Note 2: the generation speed varies from several seconds to up to a minute. I don’t know hot to speed it up yet (maybe generate 1 variant instead of 3).

GitHub: https://github.com/TeamDev-IP/MoBrowser-App-Icon-Maker

Download (signed & notarized): https://github.com/TeamDev-IP/MoBrowser-App-Icon-Maker/releases/download/v1.0.2/Icon.Maker-1.0.2-arm64.dmg

Feel free to try it out. Happy to answer questions or discuss implementation details.

If you’re a JavaScript developer thinking about building a desktop app (maybe even a cross-platform one), your first instinct might be to pick Electron. But it’s no longer the only option.

There are now several solid frameworks, each with different trade-offs in performance, bundle size, native integration, and overall developer experience.

I wrote a quick breakdown of 5 modern desktop app frameworks for JavaScript developers, comparing when each option actually makes sense (and when it doesn't).

If you're trying to figure out what to use for your next desktop app, or wondering if there's a better alternative to Electron, this might save you some time.