When I originally released Sitecore Icon Search back in 2018, the application was built around a searchable table containing thousands of Sitecore icons.
At the time, it solved the problem I was trying to fix: finding the right Sitecore icon without manually clicking through category after category in Sitecore's built-in icon selector.
Over the years, I've continued updating the app with new Sitecore icons, improved search data, JSS enum support, browser extensions, dark mode, and plenty of fixes along the way.
Last year, I gave the app a smaller visual refresh that cleaned up the styling, spacing, search bar, header, and finally added dark mode. It made the existing interface feel a lot better, but underneath it was still fundamentally the same table-based application I had originally built years earlier.
This time around, I wanted to go quite a bit further and rethink the core interface itself.
After eight years, I figured it was probably time. 😄
A Long Overdue UI Refresh
The most obvious change is that the table has finally been replaced.
Instead of displaying ten rows at a time and paging through search results, Sitecore Icon Search now displays icons in a responsive grid. All matching icons are available on the same page, so you can simply search and scroll through the results.
Search filtering still executes immediately as you type, but I've also made a few improvements to how searches are handled. For one, multiple search terms can now be combined to further narrow the results. For example, searching for user add will return icons matching both terms rather than treating the entire query as a single phrase.
I've also added a keyboard shortcut that I've found myself using quite a bit while testing the new UI: pressing / from anywhere on the page will automatically focus the search box.
Beyond the / shortcut, keyboard navigation is now fully in place. After searching for a keyword, you can use the arrow keys to move through the results and hit Enter to copy the selected icon's path.
In fact, Sitecore Icon Search is now hitting a 100% accessibility score:
Category filtering is also available directly alongside search, making it easier to narrow results to a specific Sitecore icon folder when needed.
Recent Icons, Favorites, and Icon Sizes
While rebuilding the grid, I ended up adding a few features that I didn't originally plan on but quickly found useful while testing the app.
The first is a new Recent filter. Every icon you copy is now added to a recent-history list stored locally in your browser.
Since the history is stored in local storage, it persists between sessions. If you copied an icon yesterday and can't remember exactly which one it was today, you don't necessarily have to search for it again.
There's also a new Favorites feature. Each icon card now has a small star in the upper-left corner that can be used to mark an icon as a favorite. Selecting the Favorites filter then brings all of those icons together in one place.
I can see this being particularly useful when planning out a set of templates. You can spend some time finding the icons you want to use, favorite them as you go, and then have that smaller collection readily available when it's time to actually apply the icons to your templates.
Both Recent and Favorites are stored locally in the browser, so there isn't any account, login, or server-side storage involved.
Finally, the new grid includes an icon-size slider for switching between 16x16, 24x24, and 32x32 previews.
This doesn't change the icon path being copied; it's purely a visual preference. The 16x16 setting lets you fit quite a few more results on the screen, while 32x32 is useful when you want a better look at some of the wonderfully pixelated artwork we've all been staring at inside Sitecore for years. 😄
Improved JSS Icon Support
Back in 2020, I added support for Sitecore JSS icon enums after a couple of colleagues pointed out how painful it was to find the corresponding SitecoreIcon enum value for an icon.
That functionality was originally implemented as an additional table column along with a JSS Icons Only filter.
With the new interface, JSS-supported icons now display a small JSS badge directly on the icon tile.
Clicking the icon itself copies the traditional Sitecore icon path, while clicking the JSS badge copies the corresponding enum value such as:
SitecoreIcon.Anchor
The JSS only filter is still available as well if you want to limit the grid exclusively to icons supported by the enum.
Copying Icons Without the Interruption
Copy confirmations are now displayed as small toast notifications at the top of the screen instead of a full overlay.
The randomly generated confirmation messages are still there. Some things don't need fixin'. 😄
Sitecore 10.5 Icons
Along with rebuilding the interface, I also updated the underlying icon dataset with the icons included with Sitecore 10.5. Admittedly, it's quite possible these newly added icons were introduced after 2022 (when I last went through the icon data extraction process), and I hadn't refreshed the datasource between XP releases, but they're in now!
After extracting and comparing the Sitecore 10.5 icon directories against the existing Sitecore Icon Search dataset, the application now contains 9,134 icons, up from 8,755.
The additions include:
- 339 icons from the new
NetworkV2icon category -
40 additional icons added throughout existing categories, including
document_json,checkbox_group,numbers_field,password_confirm, additional Marketing Automation icons, and several new persona avatars - No removed icons, so existing icon paths remain available
I've also added searchable attributes and synonyms for the new icons so they can be discovered through general keyword searches rather than requiring you to know the exact filename.
Browser Extension Updates
The browser extensions received the same UI overhaul as the web application.
I initially brought the updated experience into the Chrome extension, including the new grid layout, improved search, category filtering, dark mode, JSS badges, and the other interface improvements covered above.
I also updated both the Microsoft Edge Add-on and Firefox Add-on to match, so all three browser extensions are now aligned on the same refreshed UI and functionality.
The Sitecore integration itself hasn't changed.
When working in the Sitecore Content Editor, selecting an icon from the extension can still automatically update the item's Icon field and save the item. If you prefer to paste the copied icon path manually, that workflow still works.
One thing I'm particularly happy to finally bring into the extensions is JSS enum support. When an icon has a corresponding JSS enum, the JSS badge can be used to copy the enum directly without needing to jump over to the web application.
The latest Chrome version (v4.0.0) is available through the Chrome Web Store. Existing Chrome installations should receive the update automatically.
The updated versions are also available through the Microsoft Edge Add-ons and Firefox Add-ons stores for anyone using those browsers.
(FYI: Firefox's Addon submission review process always takes the longest. At the time of this post, I'd already waited 10 days and it was still in Awaiting Review. That said, the Firefox link may not yet be live yet, depending on when you read this - but I assure you, it's coming!)
A Quick Look at Usage
Before investing more time in another round of updates, I was curious about how much Sitecore Icon Search was still being used in 2026.
The answer is: it's still a small, very specific developer utility, but people are definitely still using it.
Over roughly the last 12 months, the Chrome Web Store reports 541 installs, an increase of 87.2% compared with the previous period.
During the same period, there were 118 uninstalls, which was down 18.06%.
Interestingly, the extension's Chrome Web Store listing received about 1.29K page views during that period, essentially flat at 1.76% lower than the previous period. I'm not going to pretend those numbers are enough to draw any grand conclusions, but seeing installs increase while listing traffic stayed relatively consistent was encouraging.
Traffic to sitecoreicons.com itself is a little more mixed.
So far in 2026, Google Analytics reports 961 active users, 884 new users, and about 2.6K views. Active users are down ~15%, and new users are down ~16% compared with the previous period.
More recently, though, the current quarter has been trending in the other direction with 212 active users, up ~18%, and 169 new users, up 29% over the previous period.
One metric I found particularly fitting was an average engagement time of about 38 seconds per active user.
Normally, a short engagement time might not sound all that great, but for Sitecore Icon Search, that's pretty much the goal lol. Search for an icon, copy it, and get back to whatever you were doing. You shouldn't have to spend 10 minutes on the site. 😄
The user base also continues to reach well beyond the US, with developers visiting from India, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Australia, China, Germany, and plenty of other locations.
To be clear, none of these numbers are the result of this UI refresh. They're the numbers leading into this release. It'll be interesting to come back to them later and see whether the new interface has any measurable impact.
Cleaning Up the Front-End
The UI wasn't the only part of Sitecore Icon Search showing its age.
The original application relied on jQuery, Bootstrap 3, and DataTables. Those dependencies made sense when I originally built the application in 2018, but after removing the table-based interface, there wasn't much reason to keep carrying them forward.
All three have now been removed.
Sitecore Icon Search is still built using plain HTML, CSS, and JavaScript with no external JavaScript framework dependencies. Aside from simplifying the codebase, this also reduced the amount of code and assets required to load the application (thx Claude).
Dark mode has also been updated with improved colors and contrasts.
On your first visit, the application now respects your operating system's preferred color scheme instead of defaulting everyone to light mode. You can still switch between light and dark mode manually afterward.
Finally, I've added a changelog to the About page to track future releases and application changes.
Eight Years Later...
Eight years after launching, I'm happy that developers are still using it. The usage numbers certainly aren't massive, but for a utility built to solve a very specific Sitecore developer problem, seeing it continue to get regular traffic and hundreds of extension installs years later is pretty cool.
I'm also happy to finally give the application the interface I've wanted for a while.
As always, if you run into an issue or have an idea that could make Sitecore Icon Search more useful, feel free to reach out.
Check out the updated Sitecore Icon Search
Happy Searching! 🔎
0 comments:
Post a Comment