Convert any PNG to a multi-size favicon.ico file. Choose sizes and download a single .ico file ready for your website.
Multi-size
16–256px
Single ICO
One File
Transparency
Preserved
Private
No Uploads
Sizes to include
Default 16, 32, 48 covers browser tabs and Windows taskbar. Add 256 for desktop shortcuts.
What you get (ZIP package):
Drop PNG files here or click to browse
All processing stays in your browser. Nothing is uploaded.
The ICO format is a container that holds multiple image sizes. Browsers and operating systems pick the size that fits best for each context. Including multiple sizes in one ICO file means your icon looks sharp everywhere.
Browser tab and address bar. The most important size.
Windows taskbar, browser bookmarks, and higher DPI displays.
Windows Start menu and desktop shortcuts.
High-DPI browser tabs on retina displays.
Chrome Web Store and some application installers.
Windows desktop icons at high zoom levels.
For a standard website favicon, the 16x16 + 32x32 + 48x48 combination covers all common browser and OS contexts. The tool defaults to these three sizes.
Download the favicon.ico file from the converter above.
Upload it to the root directory of your website (the same folder as your index.html).
Add this to the <head> section of your HTML:
<link rel="icon" href="/favicon.ico" type="image/x-icon">Clear your browser cache and reload your website. The favicon should appear in the browser tab.
Most browsers also detect favicon.ico automatically from the root directory even without the link tag, but including it explicitly is good practice.
A favicon is 16 by 16 pixels. That's 256 pixels total. Your logo, your brand, your site's entire visual identity squeezed into a space smaller than a thumbnail of a thumbnail. Most designers approach this the wrong way: they take the main logo, shrink it down, and wonder why it looks like a smudge in the browser tab. The problem isn't the tool. It's that most logos were never designed to work at that scale.
A well-designed favicon is almost always a simplified version of the brand. Not the full logo with the wordmark and the tagline and the decorative elements. Just the core mark, the initial, or the most distinctive shape. Think of the favicon for any major website you use regularly. It's almost always a single letter, a simple geometric icon, or a reduced version of the logo that strips everything non-essential.
The quality of your favicon.ico depends heavily on what you start with. Dropping a 200 by 200 pixel PNG into the converter and asking it to produce a 16 by 16 output is fine, but it's not ideal. The downsampling algorithm has less information to work with, and the result can look softer than necessary. Start with a 512 by 512 or larger source PNG for the best output at every size. The extra resolution gives the resizing process much more to work with when reducing to 16 pixels.
If your source image is a vector SVG, the first step is to convert it to a PNG at a large size before running it through this converter. The SVG to PNG tool handles that, and you can set the output size to 512 by 512 directly. Then bring that PNG here for the ICO conversion.
Every modern browser now supports PNG favicons. Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge will all happily use a PNG file if you point them to one with the link tag. So why bother with ICO at all? Because ICO is still the only format that works reliably across every context where your favicon might appear. Browser bookmarks on older systems, Windows taskbar pinned sites, desktop shortcuts, email clients that display favicon-style icons. The ICO file with multiple embedded sizes is the one format that covers all of those without you having to think about it.
The practical recommendation is to use ICO as your primary favicon (placed in the site root as favicon.ico), add a 180 by 180 PNG as the Apple touch icon for iOS home screen bookmarks, and optionally add a 192 by 192 PNG for Android. This three-file setup covers every platform and browser without gaps.
For most websites, 16x16, 32x32 and 48x48 cover all browser tab, bookmarks and taskbar uses. If you also need Windows desktop icon support, add 256x256. Modern browsers additionally accept PNG favicons directly, but the ICO file with multiple sizes provides the broadest compatibility including older browsers and Windows.
A square PNG with a simple, high-contrast design at 512x512 pixels or larger gives the best results. Complex logos with fine details do not scale well to 16x16. Simplified versions of logos, a single letter, or a bold icon work much better. Transparency is supported.
Place favicon.ico in the root directory of your website and add this to your HTML head: <link rel="icon" href="/favicon.ico" type="image/x-icon">. Most browsers also pick up favicon.ico automatically from the root without the link tag.
Modern browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge) all support PNG favicons. However, ICO files remain the most universally compatible option, especially for Windows, older browsers, and browser bookmarks. The recommended approach is to use an ICO file containing multiple sizes as your primary favicon, and optionally add PNG and Apple touch icon files for specific platforms.
No. The entire conversion runs in your browser. Your image is decoded via the Canvas API, resized to each selected size, and packed into an ICO binary file locally. Nothing is sent to any server.