Convert PNG to ICO
Turn a PNG into the single-image .ico Windows uses for shortcut, folder and app icons: center square crop, up to 256×256, transparency kept.
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The Change Icon dialog in Windows is picky: browse to your PNG and it simply is not listed. Explorer only offers .ico files there, plus the icons compiled into .exe and .dll files, so a logo saved as PNG cannot become a shortcut or folder icon until it is wrapped in the ICO container. That wrapping, nothing more and nothing less, is what this page does.
Drop the PNG and your browser builds a .ico with one PNG-compressed image inside: the largest centered square of the picture, downscaled to 256×256 if it was bigger, alpha channel kept at 32 bits per pixel. That is the structure Windows has used for its own 256 px icons since Vista, and Windows 10 and 11 read it directly, scaling it to whatever size Explorer, the taskbar or the Start menu needs.
One thing this page is not: a favicon kit. If the icon is headed for a website, the Favicon generator runs the same converter but walks through the 16 and 32 px tab sizes and the link tags a page needs. Here the focus stays on Windows itself: desktop shortcuts, folders, USB drives, portable apps, and build scripts that embed an .ico into an executable.
How it works
ICO is preselected and the 1:1 crop is baked in, so the three steps are mostly a check of what came out.
Add your PNG files
Drag them onto the drop zone, click to browse, or paste one with Ctrl+V. Every file becomes its own card and its own .ico; there is no cap on the count, only your device's memory.
Check the square, move it if needed
The format bar is already on ICO and the quality slider is disabled, reading lossless. The square is taken from the center by default; if your logo sits off to one side, press Crop on the card and drag the locked 1:1 box over it.
Generate, verify, download
Press Generate images. Each result card shows the output size (256×256 for anything larger) next to the file size and an EXIF-stripped tag. Check the thumbnail on the card (Compare is not offered for ICO), then download one card or all of them as a .zip.
What the .ico contains, byte for byte
ICO is a container, not an image format. A 6-byte header says how many images follow, and each 16-byte directory entry points at an uncompressed bitmap or a PNG stream. This page writes one entry: PNG data, 32 bits per pixel, width and height bytes set to 0, the ICO convention for 256. Windows Vista introduced PNG-in-ICO for its own 256 px icons, and every Windows since reads it.
Because the pixels stay PNG-compressed, the file lands close to the size of the PNG itself. A flat-color 256×256 logo typically weighs 5–40 KB; an uncompressed 32-bit bitmap entry of the same size would be a fixed 262 KB before the mask. There is no upscaling, so a small source produces a small icon.
| Source PNG | What comes out |
|---|---|
| 1024×1024 | 256×256, downscaled |
| 1920×1080 | Center 1080×1080 square, then 256×256 |
| 256×256 | 256×256, not resized |
| 48×48 | 48×48, not enlarged |
Center crop by default, movable with the Crop button
Icons are square, so a wide or tall PNG has to lose something, and the page never stretches. From a 1600×900 header it keeps the middle 900×900; from an 800×1200 poster the middle 800×800. Circles stay round and lettering keeps its proportions down to 16 px.
The center rule cannot know where your logo sits; a mark tucked into the corner of a banner would be cut off. That is what the Crop button on each card is for: it opens the image with a locked 1:1 box you drag over the mark, confirm, and generate. For a round badge with transparent corners, run the PNG through Circle crop first and convert its output here.
Installing the icon in Windows 10 and 11
Shortcut: right-click it, Properties, Shortcut tab, Change Icon, Browse, pick the .ico, OK twice. Folder: Properties, Customize tab, Change Icon. USB drive: put the .ico in the root next to an autorun.inf whose [autorun] section reads icon=name.ico. Keep the file somewhere permanent, such as an Icons folder in your user profile: Windows stores the path, not a copy, and a deleted .ico turns the shortcut back into the blank default.
Windows draws that single entry at every size it needs, from 16 px in the taskbar to 256 px in Explorer's extra-large view. Thin strokes and small text dissolve at taskbar size; bold shapes, high contrast and a little transparent margin survive.
This page or the Favicon generator?
Both write the same one-entry .ico; the difference is the workflow around it. The Favicon generator is arranged for a website: the 32 and 16 px tab icons, the PNG and SVG alternates modern browsers prefer, and the link tags for the page head. This page assumes the file is going to Windows or to a program that reads an .ico from disk.
Need the same logo as PNG or WebP as well? Switch the format bar and press Generate again; the square crop stays in place.
Frequently asked questions
What size does Windows want for a shortcut icon?
A 256×256 entry is what Microsoft's own icons use, and Windows scales it down for every smaller slot. Any PNG of 256 px or more comes out at exactly 256×256 here; a smaller PNG keeps its own dimensions.
Does the .ico keep my PNG's transparent background?
Yes. The entry is stored as 32-bit PNG data, so soft edges and fully transparent regions carry over unchanged. A JPG source has no alpha channel and becomes an opaque square.
Can I output exactly 32×32 or 48×48?
There is no size field on this page; the rule is crop to square, then cap at 256. If a program insists on a specific small size, shrink the PNG on Resize image first: a 48×48 PNG becomes a 48×48 .ico.
Is it a multi-size .ico with 16, 32, 48 and 256 inside?
No, it holds one image. Windows generates the smaller sizes on the fly, which is fine for shortcuts and folders. Older tools that expect an uncompressed 16 or 32 px bitmap entry, and Windows XP, cannot read a PNG-compressed icon at all.
Why does the icon look blurry on the desktop?
Usually the source PNG was under 256 px and Explorer's large view is stretching it, or the design has hairlines that cannot survive 16 px. Start from a 512 px or larger PNG with bold shapes; an SVG rasterized on the SVG to PNG page is the cleanest source.
I replaced the .ico but Windows still shows the old icon
Windows caches icons by path and keeps serving the cached copy. Save the new file under a different name, such as logo-v2.ico, and point the shortcut at that, or sign out and back in to flush the cache.
Does the PNG get uploaded to build the .ico?
No. JavaScript in your browser writes the 22-byte ICO header and prepends it to the PNG bytes on your own device; the download is assembled locally. Watch the Network panel (F12) while generating and no request carries the image.
Can I feed it a JPG, WebP, SVG or HEIC instead of a PNG?
Yes, any image the converter opens is accepted. SVG is rasterized, cropped square and capped at 256 px; WebP keeps its transparency; JPG and HEIC photos come out as opaque squares.