Make a favicon.ico from your logo
The ICO format is the classic icon format of Windows and the original favicon format of the web. Unlike PNG, one .ico file can contain the same icon at several sizes, so a browser tab can use a crisp 16-pixel version while a desktop shortcut uses a 48-pixel one. This converter builds such a file from a single image, entirely in your browser.
Start from the largest, cleanest version of your logo you have — a square PNG of 256 pixels or more, or an SVG. Each size is downscaled from that source with high-quality smoothing.
Choose the sizes inside the .ico
| Preset | Sizes included | Use it for |
|---|---|---|
| Favicon (default) | 16, 32, 48 px | favicon.ico for websites |
| Full set | 16, 32, 48, 64, 128, 256 px | Windows application and folder icons |
| Single 256 px icon | 256 px | When another tool or platform asks for one large icon |
Pad to square is on by default: a wide or tall logo is scaled to fit inside the square and centered, with transparent margins. Turn it off and the image is stretched to fill the square, which distorts anything that isn’t already square — for that case, Make Image Square gives you more control over the padding and its color.
How to use the favicon on your website
- Rename the downloaded file to
favicon.icoand put it at the root of your site, for examplehttps://example.com/favicon.ico. Browsers request that address automatically. - Add a link in the
<head>of your pages so every browser finds it:<link rel="icon" href="/favicon.ico" sizes="any">. - Optionally add a larger PNG for phones and modern browsers, such as a 180 × 180
apple-touch-icon— export it from your vector logo with SVG to PNG.
Browsers cache favicons aggressively, so if you don’t see the new icon right away, open the favicon.ico URL directly or try a private window.
Tips for icons that stay readable
- Simplify. At 16 × 16 pixels, fine text and thin lines disappear. Use a symbol or a single letter rather than a full wordmark.
- Mind the corners. For a rounded app-style icon, round the corners first with Round Corners, then convert.
- Check the preview. The preview shows your image before it is packed into the ICO; if it looks busy at full size, it will be unreadable in a tab.
Technical details
The file is written with PNG-compressed entries, 32 bits per pixel, which Windows Vista and later and every current browser support. The 256-pixel entry uses the ICO convention of storing its size as 0. Nothing is uploaded: the image is decoded, resized and packed by the page itself, and the result contains no metadata from the original file.