ICO Converters

ICO (Icon) is a container format developed by Microsoft for Windows icons. Unlike regular image formats, an ICO file can contain multiple images at different sizes and color depths.

Common sizes in an ICO file:

• 16×16 - Browser tabs, small favicons
• 32×32 - Bookmarks bar, taskbar
• 48×48 - Safari/Firefox large favicons
• 256×256 - High-DPI displays, touch icons

Primary use: Favicons (website icons shown in browser tabs) and Windows application icons.

ICO files are specialized for Windows and favicons. You might need to convert to PNG when:

• Editing the image - Most image editors prefer PNG/JPG over ICO
• Using in web design - PNG is more universally supported for image tags
• Documentation - Need to show the icon in a document or presentation
• Social media - Platforms don't accept ICO uploads
• Archiving - Extract the largest resolution for safekeeping

Our converter extracts the largest resolution from the ICO file (up to 256×256 pixels) and saves it as a standard PNG with full transparency support.

No quality is lost. We extract the original PNG data stored inside the ICO file. Modern ICO files store each size as a PNG internally, so extraction is lossless.

Note: Very old ICO files (Windows XP era and earlier) may store images in BMP format internally. We handle these too, converting them to PNG with full color and transparency preservation.

The output PNG is exactly the quality of the original embedded image - we don't resize or recompress it.

Currently, we extract only the largest resolution from the ICO file. This is typically the 256×256 version, which is the highest quality available.

Why just the largest?

• The 256px version contains all the detail - smaller sizes are often auto-generated from it
• You can resize the PNG down if you need smaller versions
• Most use cases (editing, documentation) need the best quality available

If you need multiple sizes extracted, the 256px PNG can be resized using any image editor.