IconArchive.com icon repository and search trick

Icons are one of the most used design resources whether for web or application design. A quick search on Google for icons brings up millions of results, from freebies to pretty expensive licensed icon packs. IconArchive.com is one of the best repositories for application and web icons, allowing users to sign up and publish their work on its site. The site itself uses Google custom search and is pretty well organized in categories.

A little trick that may help you get faster results in your icon search is to use Google’s more advanced search criteria applied to the IconArchive.com website. For example, a Google Images search using the following string: “site:iconarchive.com filetype:png folder” will take you straight to a list of png folder icons indexed from IconArchive.com. Sizes vary from 64×64px to 512×512px. This way you can find the one(s) you need faster than by browsing the site. You do have to rely on Google’s algorithm for getting the results in order, but there are other tricks for browsing the image list faster. I’ll write about those in another article.

Give it a try for now and let us know how it worked out for you. And remember to check the icon developer’s page, by clicking on the image’s URL in order to view its respective license. Some icons are free for non-commercial use or under Creative Commons, while others are available individually or in packs for a small fee.

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