PNG to ICO
Turn a logo or picture into an ICO file: the icon a website shows in the browser tab (its favicon), or an icon for a Windows program or shortcut. Every size is made from your picture in one file, and see-through areas are kept. Nothing leaves your device.
How to use it
- Choose the sizes you need: a website favicon, or a full Windows icon.
- Choose your picture, or drag it onto the box. PNG works best, but JPG, WebP and other pictures work too.
- Download the ICO file.
Which sizes should I choose?
Website icon puts 16, 32 and 48 pixel versions in one file, which is what browsers use for the tab, bookmarks and the address bar. Save it as favicon.ico in the top folder of your website.
Windows icon puts seven sizes, from 16 to 256 pixels, in one file, so the icon looks sharp everywhere Windows shows it, from a small list to a large desktop icon. You can also make a single size if a program asks for one.
Getting a good result
Start from a square picture at least 256 pixels across, with a see-through background, as a PNG. Small icons show very little detail, so a simple, bold design works far better than a photograph or small text. A picture that is not square is either shown in full with see-through edges or trimmed to fill the square, as you choose.
How the file is made
Each size is drawn from your original picture on your device, and the 256-pixel size is stored inside the ICO as a PNG, as Windows expects. The smaller sizes are stored as plain bitmaps, which every version of Windows and every browser reads. See-through areas are kept at every size.
Questions
Do websites still need favicon.ico?
Browsers also accept PNG and SVG icons named in a page's code, but a favicon.ico file in the top folder of a website is still read by every browser, and by other programs that look for it there, so it remains the safest choice.
Are my files uploaded?
No. The work happens inside your web browser, on your own device. Before your file is opened, this page locks itself: from then on your browser refuses to let it fetch, upload or send anything at all. You can check: once the page has loaded, switch off your internet connection and it will still work. How the lock works.