PNG to ICO Converter

Drop your PNG on the box above, choose the icon sizes and press Convert to ICO. In a few seconds you get a genuine .ico file that holds every size you picked, from a tiny 16 pixel tab icon up to a crisp 256 pixel desktop icon, all inside one file.

This is a PNG to ICO converter free for everyone: no account, no watermark, no daily cap and no paid upgrade hiding the useful options. The whole job runs inside your browser on your own computer or phone, so the logo or artwork you add never travels to a server.

PNG is the best starting point for an icon, because it already supports transparency. The clear areas around your logo stay clear in the icon, with soft edges intact, so the result sits naturally on any desktop, taskbar or browser tab.

A PNG file holds one picture at one size. An ICO file is a small container that can hold the same picture at many sizes, each stored separately, plus a directory that tells the system which sizes are inside. Windows, browsers and build tools read that directory and pick the size that fits each spot.

That is why programs that ask for an icon want .ico and not .png. Windows will not let you choose a PNG in the Change Icon window for folders and shortcuts, and compilers for Windows programs only embed .ico files into an .exe. Converting gives you the file those places expect.

Changing logo.png to logo.ico in File Explorer does not make an icon. The data inside is still a PNG with no icon header and no directory, so the Change Icon window either refuses it or shows a blank page symbol, and resource compilers stop with an error about an invalid icon.

A real icon file starts with the ICO header, lists every size in its directory and then stores square images of exactly those sizes. This tool writes all three parts correctly, so the file opens in every version of Windows from Vista onwards, in every browser and in common icon editors.

Many sites that convert icons upload your picture, process it on their server and send it back. Here the work is done by your browser itself. That means no waiting for an upload, no queue, no file size worries on a slow connection, and no copy of your artwork left on someone else's machine.

If you searched for a PNG to ICO converter online because you cannot install software on a work or school computer, this page needs nothing installed. It runs the same way on Windows, macOS, Linux, ChromeOS, Android and iPhone in any up-to-date browser, and once the page has loaded it keeps converting even if the connection drops.

Windows draws icons at many sizes: 16 pixels in title bars and the system tray, 24 or 32 on the taskbar, 48 on the desktop and up to 256 for extra large icons in File Explorer. When the size it needs is missing from the file, Windows scales another one up or down on the fly, and that is when icons turn blurry or jagged.

To avoid that, this tool makes PNG to ICO with multiple sizes packed in a single file. The sizes on offer are 16, 20, 24, 32, 40, 48, 64, 72, 96, 128 and 256 pixels. Pick a preset or click any size to switch it on or off; every size that is highlighted goes into the same .ico, and the hint under the buttons lists them so you know exactly what you will get.

For a website only, Favicon is enough: 16, 32 and 48 pixels cover every desktop browser, and the file stays tiny. Tick the favicon pack as well if you want home screen icons for phones.

For anything on Windows, start with Windows icon. It contains the sizes File Explorer, the taskbar and the Start menu use, including 256 for large views. Choose All sizes when people will see the icon on many different screens, such as an app you share, and Custom when documentation lists precise sizes, for example 16, 32, 48 and 256 only.

Most laptops run Windows at 125% or 150% scaling. On such a screen a 16 pixel spot is really 20 or 24 pixels, and a 32 pixel spot is 40 or 48. If the icon file only has 16 and 32, Windows enlarges them and they look fuzzy. If the file also has 20, 24, 40 and 48, Windows uses those directly.

The All sizes preset adds exactly these in-between sizes. They make the file a little larger, usually by only a few kilobytes, and give Windows a close match for every common scale, from an old office monitor to a 4K screen.

The 256 × 256 size is what Windows shows when you set File Explorer to Large or Extra large icons, and it is also the size high resolution screens reach for on the desktop. Without it, Windows stretches a 48 or 64 pixel version to fill the space and the icon looks soft exactly where it is shown biggest.

A PNG to ICO 256x256 icon fixes that. The Windows icon and All sizes presets both include 256, and in Custom it is one click. Electron and many installer tools also refuse icons that do not contain 256 × 256, so including it saves you a build error later.

256 × 256 is also the ceiling of the format. An .ico file has no way to store a larger image, so there is no point looking for 512 inside an icon. If your PNG is bigger than 256 pixels, that is ideal: the tool scales it down cleanly. If it is smaller, the 256 size can still be made, but it will be as soft as the original because no converter can invent missing detail.

Shrinking a large picture straight down to 16 pixels in one jump throws away detail unevenly and leaves the icon muddy. This tool reduces the picture in halving steps with smooth filtering until it is close to the target size, and only then makes the final step. Thin outlines and small shapes survive much better that way.

Every size is made from your original PNG, not from the size before it. The 256 pixel image keeps all the detail your file had, and the 16 pixel image gets the cleanest possible start. For PNG to ICO high quality results, give the tool the biggest, cleanest version of the artwork you have, ideally 512 pixels or more on each side.

Simple artwork wins at small sizes. A bold symbol, a single letter or a clear silhouette reads well at 16 and 32 pixels, while a full logo with a company name turns into a grey smudge. If your logo has a mark and a wordmark, use just the mark for the icon.

PNG is a lossless format, and so is the Modern icon format: each size is saved as a PNG image inside the .ico. Nothing is compressed away, colours are not reduced and the alpha channel keeps all 256 levels of transparency. That is how you get PNG to ICO without losing quality: the only change is the size of each image.

Classic 32-bit BMP and the Windows / EXE option are lossless too; they store raw pixels instead of compressed PNG, so the file is larger but every pixel is identical. Only the 256 colours (8-bit) option reduces colours, because that is what the old 8-bit icon format requires. Use it only when a very old program needs it.

The other place quality can slip is scaling. Any picture shown at 16 pixels loses detail compared with 256 pixels; that is unavoidable. What the tool controls is how gently it scales, and the halving steps plus the optional sharpening keep that loss as small as possible.

Under More options, Sharpen 16 to 48 px sizes applies a light unsharp mask to the small sizes after scaling. It brings back some of the crispness that shrinking takes away, so thin lines, small text and fine outlines stay readable in the taskbar, the system tray and browser tabs.

The sharpening only changes colour, never transparency, so edges of a transparent icon do not get a dark or bright ring. The 64 to 256 pixel sizes are left alone because they keep enough detail by themselves. Turn it on, watch the 16 and 32 pixel previews, and keep it if the icon looks clearer.

A 16 × 16 icon has only 256 pixels in total. Professional icon designers often draw this size by hand for exactly that reason. A converter cannot redraw your artwork, but you can help it a lot by choosing a picture whose main shape is large and simple, cropping tightly and using strong contrast.

If you do have a hand-drawn 16 pixel version of your icon, add it together with the large version and tick Join all pictures into one icon. The tool then uses your pixel art for the small size and the big PNG for the large sizes, which is how many professional icons are built.

Normally every picture you add becomes its own .ico file. With Join all pictures into one icon ticked, all the pictures go into a single icon instead, and each size uses the picture closest to it: the smallest picture that is at least as large as that size, or the largest one if none is big enough.

Add, for example, a 16 × 16 pixel-art PNG, a 32 × 32 one and a 1024 pixel logo. The icon then uses your 16 pixel art for 16, your 32 pixel art for 20, 24 and 32, and the large logo for 40 and up. The icon file is named after the first picture in the list.

Pixel art is the one kind of picture that should not be smoothed. If you scale a 16 × 16 drawing up to 256 pixels, smoothing turns its crisp squares into a blur. For pixel art, draw or export each size you care about at its real size and add them all with Join all pictures into one icon ticked, so every size uses your own pixels.

If you only have a small drawing, first enlarge it with hard edges in your drawing program to 256 pixels, then add that file as well. The large sizes will then show sharp blocks instead of a soft blur, while your original small drawing is used for the 16 pixel size.

As soon as a picture is added, the preview next to the file list shows it at 16, 32, 48 and 256 pixels. Changes to fit, background, white removal, shape, padding and sharpening appear after a short moment, so you can compare settings without downloading anything.

The 16, 32 and 48 pixel previews are drawn at their real size with sharp pixels, which is the honest way to judge an icon. The 256 pixel preview is shown smaller to fit. The checkered pattern behind them marks transparent areas, so you can see at once whether the background is really clear.

If your PNG already has a transparent background, there is nothing to do: leave Background set to Transparent and the clear areas, including soft and semi-transparent edges, are copied into every size of the icon. That is the main advantage of starting from PNG rather than JPG.

Many PNG logos are saved on a solid white square, though. To make PNG to ICO with transparent background from such a file, tick Make the white background transparent. Pixels close to white become clear, and pixels that are almost white fade out gradually, so the outline blends smoothly instead of keeping a hard white fringe.

The Tolerance slider sets how close to white a pixel must be to disappear. Raise it a little if a pale halo remains around the logo; lower it if light parts of the logo itself start to vanish. Keep in mind that the option removes white everywhere, not only around the edge, so white details inside a logo can turn clear too. For photos or busy backgrounds, cut the subject out first with Remove Background and convert the PNG it gives you.

A good transparent icon has soft, anti-aliased edges: the outermost pixels are partly see-through so the shape looks smooth on any background. The Modern, Windows / EXE and Classic 32-bit formats all keep that full alpha channel, so edges stay smooth at every size.

The 256 colours (8-bit) format cannot store partial transparency. Every pixel is either fully visible or fully clear, so edges can look slightly jagged. This is a limit of that old format, not of the converter, and it is why 8-bit should be your last choice.

Windows 11 has a light and a dark mode, and browsers draw tabs in both. A transparent icon sits directly on that colour, so a black logo can almost disappear on a dark taskbar and a white one on a light tab.

Check your icon against both. If it is very dark or very light, give it a solid background or choose Rounded or Circle with a contrasting colour, which turns it into a small tile that stands out anywhere. Colourful icons with a clear outline usually look fine transparent on both themes.

Background fills any part of the square that your picture does not cover, and the area behind transparent parts of a PNG. Transparent leaves it clear, White fills it with white, and Colour opens a colour picker so you can use your brand colour. If you need the exact code of a colour from your logo, Color Picker reads it from the picture.

Choose a solid background when the icon must stand out on any wallpaper or theme, or when a program cannot show transparency. Stay with Transparent for Windows 11, modern browsers and macOS, where icons usually look cut out.

Icons are always square, but many PNGs are not. Fit (whole picture) keeps the complete picture and centres it, leaving empty bands on the short sides in the background you chose. Crop to fill covers the whole square and cuts off the edges of the long side, which makes the subject bigger. Stretch squeezes the picture to the square and changes its proportions.

Fit is the safe choice for logos that must stay whole. Crop to fill suits photos and faces. Stretch is only useful for artwork that is almost square already. To decide exactly which part of a wide picture becomes the icon, crop it to a square first with Crop Image and then convert the result here.

Square fills the whole icon area, which is the classic look for Windows. Rounded adds soft corners like many modern app icons, and Circle makes a round badge that suits avatars, profile pictures and coin-style logos. With Rounded and Circle the corners outside the shape become transparent, whatever background you chose.

Combine a shape with a coloured background to turn a transparent logo into a neat tile. If you want a round picture as a PNG rather than an icon, Circle Crop makes one.

Padding, under More options, adds an empty margin of 0 to 30 percent around your picture inside the square. A little space helps, because Windows places icons close together and an image that touches every edge looks cramped.

About 5 to 10 percent suits most logos. Use more with the Circle shape so the corners of a square logo are not clipped by the round edge, and none for a photo that should fill the icon.

Inside an .ico file each size can be stored as a PNG image or as a bitmap. The Icon format option under More options gives four choices. Modern (PNG inside) is the default: small files with full transparency, read by Windows Vista and later, every current browser and macOS.

Windows / EXE stores the 256 pixel size as PNG and every smaller size as 32-bit BMP. This is what Microsoft recommends for program icons, and it works in Visual Studio, Electron, PyInstaller and resource editors. Classic (32-bit BMP) stores every size as a bitmap with an alpha channel and the old AND mask, for programs, game mods and icon editors that do not read PNG icons. 256 colours (8-bit) is for very old software only.

A favicon is the small icon in browser tabs, bookmarks, history and on phone search results. Browsers still request /favicon.ico from the root of every site, and an .ico with 16, 32 and 48 pixels covers all desktop browsers. For PNG to ICO for favicon use, choose the Favicon preset.

Phones and home screens want PNG icons too, so a complete set is more than one file. Tick Also make a full favicon pack (ZIP) under More options and the button changes to Make favicon pack. The ZIP contains favicon.ico, favicon-16x16.png, favicon-32x32.png, apple-touch-icon.png at 180 pixels, android-chrome-192x192.png, android-chrome-512x512.png, a site.webmanifest file, a how-to-use.html.txt file with the HTML tags, and the .ico file with the sizes you chose.

The apple touch icon always gets a solid square background (white, or your colour), because iPhones and iPads fill transparent areas with black. Upload the files to the root folder of your site and add these tags inside the head of your pages. After the pack is made, the Copy HTML tags button puts them on your clipboard.

The site.webmanifest file has empty name and short_name fields; fill in your site name before uploading so installed shortcuts are labelled properly. If your site lives in a subfolder rather than the root, adjust the paths in the tags and in the manifest.

Browsers cache favicons for a long time. After you replace one, open the site in a private window or clear the cache to see the new icon. At 16 pixels there is room for one letter or one bold shape, so a simplified version of your logo usually works better than the full one.

Modern browsers can show a PNG favicon through a link tag, so why make an .ico at all? Because browsers, feed readers, chat apps and other tools still request /favicon.ico directly when a page has no tags, or when they only look at the site root. Without the file they log an error and show a blank or generic icon.

The safest setup is both: favicon.ico in the root for everything that asks for it, and PNG files with link tags for browsers and phones that prefer them. The favicon pack gives you exactly that pair, with matching artwork in every file.

Custom icons make folders easier to find at a glance: a logo on each client folder, a symbol on project folders, a cover on game folders. For PNG to ICO for Windows 11, keep the default Windows icon preset; it contains 16, 24, 32, 48, 64, 128 and 256 pixels, which covers every view in File Explorer.

Before assigning the icon, move the .ico file to a permanent place, such as a folder called Icons inside Documents. Windows does not copy the icon into the folder; it remembers the path. If the .ico file is moved or deleted later, the folder goes back to the plain yellow icon.

Everything on this page works the same way on Windows 10. The Properties window, the Customize tab and the Change Icon button are identical, and the same icon file suits both systems. The main visible difference is the right-click menu: Windows 11 shows a shorter menu first, but Properties is in it, so you do not need Show more options for these steps.

Windows 11 draws icons with a little more space around them and uses rounded corners for windows, which is one reason a small amount of padding often looks better there. Rounded icons also blend in nicely with its design.

Developers need an .ico file to give a Windows program its icon. The icon is stored as a resource inside the .exe, and Windows reads it from there for File Explorer, the taskbar, Alt+Tab and the Start menu. The usual build tools all accept one .ico with several sizes.

For PNG to ICO for EXE builds, choose the Windows icon preset (or All sizes) and set Icon format to Windows / EXE under More options. That stores 256 as PNG and smaller sizes as BMP, the layout Microsoft recommends and the one older resource compilers handle best. Modern also works with current tools if you prefer smaller files.

Guides and build tools rarely agree on one exact list, which can be confusing. For Windows programs, the sizes most often required are 16, 24, 32, 48 and 256 pixels; the Windows icon preset contains all of them plus 64 and 128. Electron's packaging tools check that 256 is present. Websites need 16, 32 and 48 in favicon.ico. Some older installer and resource tools also like 20, 40 and 96, which the All sizes preset covers.

When a guide gives a list you do not see in a preset, choose Custom and click exactly those sizes. Extra sizes almost never cause problems, while a missing size means Windows has to scale another one, so when in doubt, include more rather than fewer.

Chrome and Edge can turn a web page into a desktop shortcut or an installed app, and they use the site's icons for it. With a complete favicon pack the shortcut gets a sharp picture; with only a 16 pixel favicon it looks pixelated on the desktop. If you made such a shortcut yourself and want a different picture, change it through the shortcut's Properties window with the steps above.

For your own website, the 192 and 512 pixel PNG files in the pack and the site.webmanifest file are what make installed shortcuts look clean on Android, ChromeOS and Windows.

Icons are not only for programs. People use them for USB drives (through an autorun.inf file with an icon line), game folders and launcher entries, mod packs, network drives and portable apps. Any tool that asks for an .ico will accept the files made here.

Some older mod tools and game editors only read bitmap icons. If one shows your icon as blank or calls it invalid, convert again with Icon format set to Classic (32-bit BMP), and as a last resort 256 colours (8-bit).

macOS opens .ico files in Preview, and browsers on Mac read favicon.ico just like on Windows, so the favicon pack serves Mac visitors too. Mac folders and apps use a different icon format, but you can set a custom folder icon on a Mac by copying a picture, choosing Get Info on the folder, clicking the small icon at the top and pasting.

On Linux, desktop environments mostly use PNG files for app icons, while browsers, Wine programs and many cross-platform apps still read .ico. The PNG files in the favicon pack are handy there as well.

Add up to 100 pictures at once, each up to 50 MB. Every picture becomes its own .ico with the same settings: the same sizes, fit, background, shape, padding and format. With two or more icons, Download all (ZIP) saves them together, and each one can also be saved separately from the list.

This is useful for a set of folder icons, a toolbar's worth of app icons or the logos of several clients. Because the work happens on your device, a batch only takes as long as your computer needs; nothing has to be uploaded or downloaded file by file.

This page is built for PNG, but JPG, WebP, GIF and BMP pictures work just as well, and AVIF works in browsers that can open it. Transparency in PNG and WebP files is kept. For a JPG logo on white, the white background option makes the background clear; JPG to ICO is the same tool with JPG in mind.

You can also paste a picture you copied, for example a screenshot or an image copied from a design program, by pressing Ctrl+V on the page. Pressing Ctrl+Enter starts the conversion once files are added. If your logo is an SVG, turn it into a large PNG first with SVG to PNG, and for a WebP file you can also use WebP to PNG before converting.

The clearest icons come from square or nearly square artwork with one strong subject, high contrast and few fine details: a logo mark, an initial, a simple symbol or a close-up face. Bright colours on a transparent or plain background stay readable even at 16 pixels.

Wide banners, group photos and logos with long text lose most of their meaning when squeezed into a tiny square. When in doubt, look at the 16 pixel preview. If you can still tell what it is, the icon works. If your source picture is huge, there is no need to shrink it first, but Resize Image can help when you also want a smaller PNG for other uses.

Think of an icon as a road sign rather than a poster. It is seen for a fraction of a second, often at the size of a fingernail, so it must say one thing clearly. One shape, two or three colours and a strong outline do more than any amount of detail.

Leave a little room around the main shape, keep lines at least two or three pixels thick at the 32 pixel size, and avoid text unless it is a single letter. Gradients and soft shadows look lovely at 256 pixels but tend to turn into a muddy blur at 16, so a flat version of the artwork often makes the better icon.

If you are making several icons that belong together, such as folders for every project or tools in one app, use the same shape, padding and background for all of them. Add the pictures in one batch and every icon gets identical settings, which keeps the set looking consistent.

Once you have assigned an icon to a folder, open File Explorer and switch the view between Small icons, Medium icons, Large icons and Extra large icons. Each view uses a different size from the file, so you can see at a glance that all of them look right and that none is stretched.

To test a favicon, upload the files and open the site in a private browser window, then add it to the bookmarks bar. On a phone, add the site to the home screen to check the apple touch icon or the Android icons. The list under the result also shows how many sizes each file has and how large it is.

Brands change and icons get refreshed. Because the tool remembers your settings in your browser, making an updated icon is quick: add the new picture and press the button, and you get the same sizes, shape and format as last time.

If you replace an .ico file with a new one of the same name and in the same place, folders and shortcuts that point to it pick up the new picture once Windows refreshes its icon cache. For a website, use the same file names so the existing tags keep working, and expect browsers to show the old favicon for a while.

Keep one master copy of your icon artwork as a large PNG, at least 512 or 1024 pixels square, next to the finished .ico files. If you later need a different shape, background or format, you can make a new icon in seconds instead of searching for the original or trying to rebuild it from the small sizes.

Store the .ico files you assign to folders and shortcuts in one place that you back up, for example Documents\Icons. When you move to a new computer, copy that folder to the same path and the custom icons keep working.

A detailed picture will be hard to read at 16 pixels whatever tool you use, and a small picture will look soft at 256 because detail cannot be invented. The white background option works on white and near-white only; it does not remove coloured or busy backgrounds.

An .ico file cannot hold anything larger than 256 × 256 pixels; that is a rule of the format. For larger icons on phones and installed web apps, the favicon pack adds 180, 192 and 512 pixel PNG files next to the .ico. Animated GIFs are converted from their first frame only, because icons are still images.

An ICO file starts with a six-byte header, followed by a directory with one 16-byte entry for every image: its width, height, colour depth, length and position in the file. After the directory come the images themselves, each either a complete PNG file or a bitmap with a transparency mask.

The width and height fields are a single byte each, which can count only to 255; the value 0 is used to mean 256. That is the technical reason 256 × 256 is the largest size an icon can hold. Windows reads the directory, picks the entry that fits each place best and draws it.

PNG and SVG are used for many icons on the web and on phones, yet ICO is still the only format Windows accepts for folders, shortcuts and program files, and favicon.ico is still the first file browsers ask for. Keeping both a PNG and an ICO version of your logo covers every case.

Because one .ico carries many sizes, you do not have to keep and name a separate file for each size. One file per icon is easier to share, store and assign.

Your pictures are not uploaded. Opening the PNG, scaling every size, removing white, writing the .ico and building the ZIP all happen in your browser, on your device. When you close the tab, nothing is left on any server because nothing was sent to one.

That matters for unreleased logos, client artwork and app icons under development. The page remembers only your settings, in your own browser, so the next visit starts with the same sizes and options.

Some privacy settings and browser extensions block pages from reading picture pixels. If that happens, the tool shows a warning, because icons could come out wrong. Allow canvas access for this site or use another browser.

Your browser decodes the picture and draws it onto a 1024 pixel square using your fit, padding, background and shape. If you asked for the white background to be removed, pixels near white are made clear first, with a soft edge set by the tolerance.

For each chosen size, that square is reduced in halving steps with smooth filtering, then optionally sharpened at 16 to 48 pixels. Each size is encoded as PNG or as a bitmap with a mask, depending on the icon format, and everything is written into one .ico file with a correct header and directory.

Start from the largest, cleanest PNG you have, ideally 512 pixels or more.

Use Windows icon for folders, shortcuts and programs, and Favicon for websites.

Choose Windows / EXE as the icon format when the icon goes into a program.

Check the 16 pixel preview before you download.

Add 5 to 10 percent padding for logos so they do not touch the edges.

Test a transparent icon on both a light and a dark background.

Keep the .ico file in a permanent folder before assigning it.

Keep the original PNG so you can make the icon again with other settings.

Is the subject recognisable in the 16 pixel preview?

Are 16, 32, 48 and 256 highlighted under Icon sizes for a Windows icon?

Does the checkered pattern show through where the background should be clear?

Is the icon format right for the job: Modern for folders and websites, Windows / EXE for programs?

For a website, did you upload every file from the favicon pack and paste the tags?