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How to render images using SF Symbols

Paul Hudson    @twostraws   

Updated for Xcode 14.2

SwiftUI’s Image view lets us load any of the 2400+ icons from SF Symbols, with many of them working in multi-color too.

To load icons from Apple’s SF Symbols set, use the Image(systemName:) initializer, passing in the icon string to load, like this:

Image(systemName: "moon.stars.fill")

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A symbol showing the cresent moon and stars.

The image you get back is scalable and colorable, which means you can ask SwiftUI to scale up the image to match whatever Dynamic Type text style it accompanies, if any:

Image(systemName: "wind.snow")
    .font(.largeTitle)

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A large symbol showing a gust of wind blowing snowflakes along.

And it also means you can tint the image using the same foregroundColor() modifier you’ve already seen:

Image(systemName: "cloud.heavyrain.fill")
    .font(.largeTitle)
    .foregroundColor(.red)

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A red symbol showing a cloud dispensing heavy rain.

If you’re using an image that has color elements, you can activate multi-color mode using .renderingMode(.original), like this:

Image(systemName: "cloud.sun.rain.fill")
    .renderingMode(.original)
    .font(.largeTitle)
    .padding()
    .background(.black)
    .clipShape(Circle())

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A black circle on top of which is a symbol which depicts a white cloud dispensing blue rain and partially obscuring a yellow sun.

You can optionally apply a foregroundColor() modifier to a multi-color SF Symbol, which will cause part of the symbol to be recolored. For example, this will render part of the icon blue and part green:

Image(systemName: "person.crop.circle.fill.badge.plus")
    .renderingMode(.original)
    .foregroundColor(.blue)
    .font(.largeTitle)

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A symbol showing a circular blue person symbol, overlaid with a circular green plus symbol.

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