Free PNG to ICO Converter

What is a PNG to ICO converter?

A PNG to ICO converter turns a picture into an ICO file, the icon format Windows and browsers read.

An ICO holds several sizes of the same icon, so each place that shows it gets a sharp one. A PNG holds only one.

Which sizes to pick

The right sizes depend on where the icon goes:

Microsoft's icon guide says Windows looks for the exact size first, then shrinks the next size up. With a 256 px size inside, it never has to enlarge your icon.

What's inside an ICO file

An ICO file holds several pictures of the same icon, one per size, and the program showing it picks the best one.

Each size under 256 px is a 32-bit bitmap with its transparency, like Google's, GitHub's and Python's favicons. The 256 px size is a PNG, which keeps the file small.

A favicon.ico with 16, 32 and 48 px comes to about 15 KB, whatever the picture.

Sharp at 16 pixels

A favicon is shown tiny, so how it's made smaller matters. The tool resizes with Lanczos 3, the filter ImageMagick uses to shrink pictures.

I checked it on my own 512 px favicon: at 16, 32, 48 and 128 px, every pixel matched ImageMagick's, in Chrome and in Safari. An SVG logo is drawn fresh at each size, so it stays crisp.

Compared with CloudConvert

I converted the same pictures to ICO with CloudConvert on September 30, 2026:

Google Search shows only square favicons, by its own guidelines. So a wide logo needs to be centered on a square, the way this converter does it.

Making a favicon?

An ICO covers browser tabs, but phones and Google Search want PNGs too. The favicon generator makes the ICO and all the others from one logo, with the HTML to paste.

Pick the right picture

A few things make a favicon read well at 16 px:

• Square – a wide logo is centered with see-through space above and below it. Use your logo's mark, not the full wordmark.
• Big enough – 512 px or more, or an SVG. A smaller picture is enlarged for the 512 px icons and looks soft.
• Simple – fine detail and small text disappear in a browser tab. A bold shape reads best.

The tool warns you when a picture isn't square or is too small.

Nothing is uploaded

The tool runs in your browser, so your pictures never leave your computer. There's no account and no limit.

It converts a picture in well under a second: 0.2 seconds for all 7 sizes of my 512 px favicon.

Who is the PNG to ICO converter for?

It's for anyone who needs an icon file:

• Favicon generator – site owners who want every icon at once
• PNG to SVG converter – designers turning a logo into vector shapes first
• Image resizer – anyone who needs one exact size as a PNG
• Compress PNG – developers making their app's images smaller

Developers use it for the icon their Windows app ships with.

More free tools for icons and logos

Here are my other icon tools, and two for getting your logo ready:

• Favicon generator – every icon a site needs, with the HTML
• ICO to PNG converter – every picture inside an ICO
• PNG to SVG converter – a logo as clean vector shapes
• Logo background remover – a logo on a see-through background

They're all free, in your browser, with no watermark.