Tutorial — the fastest route
How to grab an SVG in one right-click
When you want one specific icon and you want it now, opening a popup and paging to it is three steps too many. There is a one-step route.
Watch it — 15 seconds
One menu item, one file
Look at the menu in the recording: there is no Save image as… in it, because an inline <svg> is not an image. The extension’s row is the only thing there that can save the vector.
What the recording shows
- You want one icon, and you want it now
- Right-click it and take Save this as SVG
- No popup, no scan — one menu item, one file
- The same sanitiser runs, so the file still opens anywhere
When to use which
Right-click for one, the popup for a decision
Both routes end with the same file, produced by the same code. They differ in what you have to know first.
- Right-click when you already know exactly which graphic you want and you are looking straight at it. You point at it; there is no list, no paging and no ambiguity. This is the fastest possible route to a single file.
- The popup when you do not know yet — when you want to see the isolated preview, compare two similar icons, choose a filename, convert to PNG, copy the markup, or take the whole page at once. It is the route with options.
Notably, right-click needs no scan at all. Nothing walks the page, nothing is counted, and there is no list to build — the extension is handed the element you clicked and works on that one thing.
Grabbing one
There are two steps and one of them is “right-click”.
- Right-click the graphic. Point at the icon, logo or illustration you want and right-click it. It works on inline vectors, on images, and on graphics painted as CSS backgrounds.
- Choose “Save this as SVG”. The extension’s item sits in its own group below Chrome’s own entries. Choosing it finds the graphic under your cursor, resolves it, sanitises it, and saves it — no popup opens at any point.
It is the same file, not a shortcut version
The heavy work happens in the same place either way. The service worker behind the menu item has no DOM of its own, so it asks the page's content script for a finished, sanitised file and hands that to the browser's download machinery. That is the identical path a popup download takes — the same namespace repair, the same stripping of scripts and event handlers. You are not trading quality for speed.
Where the menu item will not appear
It is registered for ordinary web pages only — http and https. You will not see it on chrome:// pages, on the Chrome Web Store or other extension galleries, or on PDFs and other non-HTML documents. Browsers block extensions on their own gallery pages deliberately, and no extension can work around that.
If the icon comes from a sprite
Sprite <use> references that point into the same document resolve immediately. One that points at a separate sprite file the page has not loaded needs fetching first, so it may take a moment longer — or, if that file is unreachable, fail. In that case open the popup and take it from the scan, which has more room to resolve it.
- Steps
- Two. Right-click, then choose the item. No popup, no scan.
- Quality
- Identical to a popup download — same sanitiser, same namespace repair.
- Works on
- Inline vectors, images and CSS-background graphics on any
http(s)page. - Use the popup for
- Previewing, renaming, PNG conversion, copying, or the whole page at once.
Good to know
Frequently asked
Where is the "Save this as SVG" menu item?
In the right-click menu on any ordinary web page, in its own group below Chrome’s own items. Extension-contributed items always sit below the built-ins.
Is the file any different from a popup download?
No. Both run the same sanitiser and the same namespace repair — the right-click route simply skips the scan and the preview.
The menu item is missing on this page.
It is registered for http and https pages only. Browser-internal pages, the Chrome Web Store, other extension galleries and PDFs are all off-limits to extensions by design.
Can I right-click a CSS background image?
Yes. The item is offered on both image and general page targets, so inline vectors and CSS backgrounds are both reachable.
Nothing downloaded when I clicked it.
Most often the graphic under the cursor was a sprite reference pointing at a separate file the page never loaded, so there was nothing to resolve. Open the popup and take it from the scan instead.
One icon, one right-click
The fastest route there is — and the file is exactly the same.