Anyone who has worked with SF Symbols knows the challenge. Apple’s icon library contains thousands of symbols, which is fantastic for having options, but finding the right one often means scrolling through endless grids or trying to guess cryptic names like “arrow.triangle.2.circlepath.circle” when you simply need an icon that represents syncing.
I recently came across Semantic SF on the App Store while looking for developer utilities. The premise is straightforward: instead of browsing through Apple’s massive SF Symbols catalog, you describe what you need in plain English. Type “upload” and the app shows you relevant symbols. Search for “weather” and you get sun, cloud, and rain icons. It understands the concepts behind the symbols rather than just matching exact names.
For context, SF Symbols is Apple’s comprehensive icon system used across macOS and iOS apps. If you have ever built a SwiftUI app or designed interfaces for Apple platforms, you have encountered these symbols. They integrate seamlessly with San Francisco font, support dynamic sizing, and adapt to light and dark modes automatically. The challenge is not the quality of the symbols but finding the right one among the thousands available.
Semantic SF lives in your menu bar and opens with a keyboard shortcut (customizable). The search is genuinely fast and the natural language processing works well. Searching for “person” returns profile icons, user symbols, and avatar-related graphics. Looking for “error” brings up warning triangles, exclamation marks, and alert symbols. The app displays results in a clean grid with the symbol name underneath each icon, making it easy to copy the exact identifier you need for your code.
The app is completely free with no ads or in-app purchases, which is refreshing. Developer Mansidak Singh clearly built this as a utility for fellow developers and designers rather than a monetization vehicle. The app collects no user data according to its privacy policy, which aligns with the privacy-conscious approach I prefer in menu bar utilities.
On my Mac Mini with M4, Semantic SF uses minimal resources and launches instantly. The interface is minimal but functional. You search, you find your symbol, you click to copy the name, and you move on. No unnecessary features or complexity. The app requires macOS 13.5 or newer and weighs in at just 2.6 MB.
The limitation here is obvious: this is a very specific tool for a specific audience. If you are not developing apps for Apple platforms or designing interfaces that use SF Symbols, you have no use for this app. Even developers who primarily work on web or Android projects will not benefit. This is purely for the macOS and iOS development community.
For those who do work with SF Symbols regularly, especially SwiftUI developers, this solves a genuine pain point. The built-in SF Symbols app from Apple requires more clicks and does not offer natural language search. Third-party websites exist for browsing symbols, but having instant menu bar access with smart search is notably faster when you are in the middle of coding.
The app launched in December 2024, so it is very new. Version 2.0 fixed some deployment issues with minimum system requirements. Given how recently it launched, there is not much user feedback yet, but the concept is solid and the execution is clean. For a free utility that does exactly what it promises without complications, it deserves a spot in the menu bars of developers who frequently reference SF Symbols.
