Guide

Favicon sizes explained

Last updated 1 September 2026

The honest answer is that you need far fewer files than most generators hand you, but each of the ones you do need answers to a different consumer. Here is what asks for what.

The files that matter

• favicon.ico — a container holding 16, 32 and 48 pixel images in one file. Browsers and feed readers still request it from your site root by name, sometimes without reading your HTML at all. This is the one file you should never drop.
• favicon-16x16.png — the browser tab at standard density. The hardest case, and the one worth designing for first.
• favicon-32x32.png — tabs on higher-density displays, and Windows taskbar shortcuts.
• apple-touch-icon.png at 180×180 — iOS home screens when someone saves your site. iOS applies its own rounded mask, so this file must be square and fully opaque. Transparency renders as black.
• android-chrome-192x192.png and 512x512 — referenced from the web manifest rather than your HTML. The 512 is used for the install prompt and splash screen.
• favicon.svg — vector, so it stays sharp at any size and can carry a dark mode rule. Not a replacement for the ICO. See why you still need both.
• site.webmanifest — the metadata file that names your site on a home screen and points at the Android icons.

Maskable icons, which most sets omit

Android launchers crop your icon to whatever shape the device theme uses — circle, squircle, rounded square. A normal icon handed to that process loses its corners, and any transparency gets filled by the launcher. The fix is a separate full-bleed render with the artwork pulled inside a safe circle covering roughly 80% of the tile, declared in the manifest with purpose: "maskable".

Claiming purpose: "any maskable" on your ordinary icon — which plenty of generators do — tells Android it is safe to crop something that was never designed for it.

What you can skip

Microsoft tile images, browserconfig.xml, and the long tail of 57, 60, 72, 76, 114 and 120 pixel Apple sizes are all legacy. Modern iOS scales the 180 down. Shipping fifteen files instead of eight buys you nothing but confusion.

Design for 16 pixels, not 512

Every file above is generated from one drawing, so the drawing has to survive the smallest one. At 16 pixels a stroke is roughly one pixel wide, counters inside letters close up, and thin serifs disappear into antialiasing. If you check nothing else, check the 16.