Favicon Generator
Free favicon generator. Turn any image into favicon.ico, every PNG size, an Apple touch icon and a web manifest — with the HTML to paste into your head.
Click to choose a file or drag & drop here
A square PNG or SVG at 512px or larger works best · never uploaded
The favicon is the smallest piece of branding a site has and the one people see most: in the tab, in the bookmark bar, in history, in search results on mobile, and on a phone home screen if anyone installs the site. A missing one leaves a blank sheet of paper next to your name; a wrong-sized one turns into a blur.
This tool takes one image and produces the whole set — a real multi-resolution favicon.ico, every PNG size current browsers and platforms ask for, an Apple touch icon, a web manifest and the HTML to paste into your head. Everything is generated in your browser.
How to use the Favicon Generator
Upload your source image
A square PNG or SVG at 512 pixels or larger gives the best result. Anything non-square is fitted inside the square rather than cropped.
Adjust padding and corners
A little padding stops a dense logo touching the edges. Corner rounding is useful when your icon needs a solid tile.
Choose a background
Transparent for a logo that should float, or a solid colour if your mark needs contrast against a dark browser theme.
Download the pack
One ZIP with favicon.ico, every PNG size, apple-touch-icon.png, a site.webmanifest and a head snippet.
Drop the files in your site root
Then paste the four lines from head-snippet.html into your page head.
Why so many sizes
Different places ask for different things, and there is no single size that satisfies all of them. A browser tab uses 16 or 32 pixels. A Windows taskbar shortcut wants 48. An iOS home screen icon is 180. Android and the web app manifest want 192 and 512. A search result on mobile may pull any of them.
Scaling one large image down to 16 pixels in the browser produces a mush, which is why a proper icon set contains real files at each size rather than a single large one. The pack here renders each size independently from your source.
| File | Where it is used |
|---|---|
| favicon.ico (16/32/48) | Browser tabs, bookmarks, Windows shortcuts, legacy support |
| favicon-32x32.png | Modern browser tabs on standard displays |
| favicon-16x16.png | Tabs on small or low-density displays |
| apple-touch-icon.png (180) | iOS and iPadOS home screen |
| icon-192.png | Android home screen and the web app manifest |
| icon-512.png | Android splash screens and install prompts |
Why favicon.ico still matters
The ICO format is thirty years old and is not going away, because browsers still request /favicon.ico from the site root whether or not you have declared one in your HTML. Serving nothing there produces a 404 on every first visit.
A modern ICO is a container holding several PNG images at different resolutions. The browser picks the one that fits the space it needs, which is why one ICO can look right in a 16-pixel tab and a 48-pixel shortcut. That is exactly what this tool builds.
Designing an icon that survives 16 pixels
- One idea only. A logo with a wordmark, a symbol and a tagline becomes a grey smudge. Use the symbol alone.
- Bold shapes, thick strokes. Hairlines vanish. Anything thinner than about 1/16th of the width will not survive.
- High contrast. The icon sits on a light tab bar for some people and a dark one for others; test both.
- Square, or padded to square. A wide logo shrunk to fit a square leaves it tiny. Crop to the symbol instead.
- Avoid fine gradients. They band and muddy at small sizes; flat colour reads better.
Installing it
Put every file from the ZIP in your site's root directory — the same place as your homepage — so that /favicon.ico resolves. Then paste the head snippet into your HTML head. Nothing else is required.
One warning: browsers cache favicons unusually aggressively, and a hard refresh often will not shift the old one. If your new icon does not appear, open the icon file directly by URL and refresh that, or test in a private window.
Frequently asked questions
What size should a favicon be?
There is no single size. You need at least 16, 32 and 48 pixels inside favicon.ico, plus 180 for Apple devices and 192 and 512 for Android and the web manifest. This tool generates all of them.
Do I still need favicon.ico?
Yes. Browsers request /favicon.ico from your site root regardless of what your HTML declares, so without it every first visit produces a 404.
What image should I start from?
A square PNG or SVG at 512 pixels or larger, showing one bold symbol. Detailed logos with text do not survive being shrunk to 16 pixels.
Is my image uploaded anywhere?
No. Every size is rendered on a canvas in your browser and packed into a ZIP locally. The image never leaves your device.
Why has my new favicon not appeared?
Favicon caching is unusually stubborn. Open the icon file directly by its URL and refresh, or check in a private window — a normal hard refresh often is not enough.
Can I use a photograph?
You can, but it will not read well. Photographs lose all detail at 16 pixels; a simple high-contrast symbol always works better.
100% private. Files are processed on your device and never uploaded.
Instant results. No upload queue. Processing time depends on your device.
Free forever. No signup, no watermark, no paid tier.
Works everywhere. Use a modern browser on your phone or computer.
Related tools
Favicon Generator is one of all the free tools on ToolNest. No account or subscription needed — anywhere in the world.