Convert ICO to PNG

ICO is the Windows icon format and the classic format for website favicons. It works great as an icon and poorly everywhere else: most image editors, slide apps, social sites and upload forms will not take it, and many viewers only show one of its sizes.

Converting an icon to PNG gives you an ordinary image file with a transparent background. Common reasons:

• You want to reuse your own app's or website's icon, but only the .ico survived.
• You need the favicon in a presentation, brand guide or documentation.
• Your editor cannot open ICO, and you want to tweak the icon.
• An app store, host or profile page asks for a PNG.

An ICO file is a small container. It can hold the same icon at several sizes, such as 16 × 16, 32 × 32, 48 × 48 and 256 × 256 pixels, and the system picks the right one for each place.

A PNG holds a single image, so the browser decodes one image from the ICO, usually the largest, highest-quality one, and that becomes your PNG. The smaller sizes are not exported as separate files.

What the ICO contains	What you get
16, 32, 48 and 256 px	typically a 256 × 256 PNG
16 and 32 px only (common for old favicons)	a 32 × 32 PNG
a single 64 px image	a 64 × 64 PNG

Need a smaller PNG? Scale the big one down with Resize image. The opposite does not work well: enlarging a 32 px favicon gives a blurry, blocky picture because the detail was never there.

Icons almost always have transparent backgrounds so they look right on any taskbar or browser tab. PNG keeps that transparency fully, including soft, semi-transparent edges, so the result sits cleanly on light or dark backgrounds.

The conversion is lossless: the PNG holds exactly the pixels of the chosen icon image. It is also optimized losslessly with OxiPNG to keep the file small. If you later turn the PNG into a JPG, remember that JPG has no transparency, so the background will be filled with a solid color.

Say you want your company's old website icon in a new slide deck, and the favicon is all that is left.

1. On most sites the favicon lives at the root: open yourcompany.com/favicon.ico in your browser and save the file, or download it from your web host.
2. Drop it here and convert.
3. Check the size in the preview. If the PNG is only 32 × 32, the ICO had nothing larger.
4. That may be fine as a small bullet icon. For a large, crisp logo, ask your designer for the original artwork, or try vectorizing a simple, flat icon with PNG to SVG.

Only reuse other companies' icons and logos as their brand rules allow; converting a file does not change who owns it.

Task	Tool
ICO to PNG for editing or slides	this page
PNG to a new multi-size favicon.ico	PNG to ICO
ICO to JPG, WebP or another format	Image converter

For a fresh favicon, start from a large square PNG (at least 256 × 256 px) and build the ICO from that. Everything on this page happens in your browser, so your icon files never leave your device. One result downloads directly; several come as one ZIP, and each can also be saved on its own.