Convert ICO to APNG Online

Convert ICO to APNG

ICO is the Windows icon container: a single .ico can hold several sizes and colour depths of the same picture, usually with per-pixel transparency. APNG keeps that full alpha channel and adds frame-by-frame animation, which makes it the natural target when you want an animated icon, a small looping UI graphic, or simply a modern raster copy of an icon with its soft edges intact. Upload one .ico and you get a plain static PNG; queue several in order to stitch them into one real animation.

How to Convert ICO to APNG

1. Upload Your ICO Files: Drag and drop your .ico files onto the page, or click "+ Add Files" to browse. To build an animation, add several icons — they become frames in the order you upload them.
2. Set the Framerate: Open the options. FRAMERATE starts on 10 FPS (Recommended) and offers 1, 2, 5, 8, 10, 12, 15, 20, 25, 30 and 50 FPS. The frame rate sets how long each frame stays on screen: at 10 FPS every frame holds for a tenth of a second, at 1 FPS (Slideshow) for a full second.
3. Choose the Image resolution and Combine mode: Image resolution starts on Keep original, and also offers Resolution Percentage, Preset Resolutions — including icon-scale entries such as 256P, 128P, 64P, 48P, 32P and 16P — plus Width, Height and Width x Height. Combine? starts on Single animation; switch it to Individual files to get one APNG per icon instead.
4. Convert and Download: Click Convert, then download your APNG. Files are uploaded over an encrypted connection, processed on our servers, and deleted automatically a few hours later. No sign-up, no watermark.

Walk-through: One Icon, Several Icons, and What Comes Out

With two or more icons the output is a real APNG — a PNG file with the animation chunks the format defines — so it opens anywhere a PNG opens, and animates where APNG is supported. A single icon comes out as an ordinary static PNG instead.

• One icon in. You get a plain static PNG. The assembler collapses a lone input to a single still frame and writes no animation chunks at all, so the file is an ordinary PNG carrying the .apng extension — same picture, same alpha channel, no motion.
• Several icons in, Combine? on Single animation. Each .ico becomes one frame, played in upload order, looping forever. At the default 10 FPS a four-icon sequence is a 0.4-second loop, so drop the frame rate to 2 or 5 FPS if you want each frame to be readable.
• Several icons in, Combine? on Individual files. Each icon is converted on its own, and you get one APNG per input.
• Mixed sizes are letterboxed, not cropped. When your icons are not all the same size, every frame is scaled to fit a shared canvas — the largest width and height in the set — then centred, with the leftover area left fully transparent. Nothing is cut off and nothing is stretched out of shape.
• Transparency survives the whole path. APNG carries an 8-bit alpha channel on every frame, and the padding used when frames are combined is transparent rather than a solid colour. In our own check, an anti-aliased 256 × 256 icon came through the resize step still carrying a full alpha channel, so its soft edges stayed soft rather than gaining a white halo.
• The finished file is re-compressed losslessly. After assembly the APNG is run through a Zopfli-based optimiser, which shrinks the file without touching a single pixel.

One thing to check before you convert: an .ico can hold several sizes, and the format does not require them to be stored in any order. The converter reads the first entry in the file. If your icon was saved smallest-first, the APNG will come out at 16 × 16 even though a 256 × 256 layer is sitting in the same file — re-save with the large entry first, or export a single-size icon, if the output size looks wrong.

ICO and APNG at a Glance

APNG Browser Support

Global support currently sits around 95.9% of tracked browser usage, and the fallback is graceful everywhere: a browser that does not animate APNG still renders the first frame as an ordinary PNG, so nothing breaks.

Common Errors and How to Fix Them

• "My APNG is 16 × 16 and I expected 256 × 256" — The first entry stored in your .ico was the small one. Re-save the icon with the largest entry first, or export a single-size 256 × 256 icon and convert that.
• "It does not animate" — A single input produces a plain static PNG with no animation data. Upload several icons and leave Combine? on Single animation to get real motion.
• "The animation flashes past too quickly" — At 10 FPS each frame lasts a tenth of a second. Drop FRAMERATE to 5, 2 or 1 FPS (Slideshow) to hold each frame longer.
• "Frames of different sizes have gaps around them" — That is the shared-canvas padding, and it is fully transparent rather than a colour. Resize your icons to a common size beforehand if you want them edge-to-edge.
• "Some app shows only the first frame" — That is APNG's built-in fallback for software without animation support. The file itself is fine; the viewer simply reads it as a plain PNG.
• "I wanted a favicon and it is not moving in the tab" — Browsers are inconsistent about animating favicons regardless of format. Design the first frame to work on its own, because that is what most people will see in the tab.

When This Doesn't Work

If you only need one still picture with clean edges, an animation-capable format is more machinery than the job requires — ICO to PNG gives you a plain lossless raster with the same alpha channel, and ICO to WebP gives you a smaller file for the web. If you need the widest possible compatibility with older software and messaging apps, ICO to GIF is the safer animated format, at the cost of a 256-colour palette and hard-edged transparency. And if you are going the other way — turning an existing animation into an icon-friendly file — APNG to GIF and APNG to PNG handle those directions. What this page cannot do is invent frames: converting a single static icon will never produce motion, no matter which frame rate you choose.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I turn several ICO files into one animated APNG?

Upload the icons in the order you want them to play and leave Combine? on Single animation. Each .ico becomes one frame, and FRAMERATE decides how long each frame stays on screen — 10 FPS gives a tenth of a second per frame, 1 FPS gives a full second. The finished animation loops indefinitely. If you would rather have separate files, switch Combine? to Individual files.

Does the APNG keep the transparency from my ICO?

Yes. A 32-bit ICO entry carries 24-bit colour plus an 8-bit alpha channel — a capability Windows XP introduced — and APNG carries a full alpha channel on every frame, so soft anti-aliased edges and partial transparency come through intact. When frames of different sizes are combined onto a shared canvas, the padding is left transparent rather than filled with a colour, so nothing gains a visible box.

My ICO holds several sizes — which one ends up in the APNG?

The first entry stored in the file. The ICO format does not mandate an order for its entries — Windows scores them at display time rather than relying on position — so an icon written smallest-first converts at 16 × 16 even when a 256 × 256 layer is present. Check the order in an icon editor, or export a single-size icon, if the result is not the size you expected. You can also set an explicit size under Image resolution using Width x Height.

Why does a single ICO come out as a plain static PNG?

Because there is nothing to animate. When only one image goes in, the assembler collapses it to a single still frame and writes no animation chunks, so the output is an ordinary PNG that carries the .apng extension. Nothing about the picture changes — full colour and the alpha channel come through intact, and any PNG-capable viewer opens it. Upload two or more icons if you want a file with real animation data inside.

Is APNG better than GIF for an icon?

For icons, usually yes. GIF caps each frame at 256 colours and offers only on/off transparency, which produces jagged edges and dithering on anti-aliased artwork. APNG supports 24-bit colour with an 8-bit alpha channel, so gradients and soft edges stay smooth. The trade-offs are a somewhat larger file for photographic content and slightly narrower support in very old software. If you specifically need GIF, use ICO to GIF instead.

Is APNG an official standard, or a browser extension?

It is official. The animation chunks acTL, fcTL and fdAT are defined in the PNG Specification (Third Edition), which the W3C published as a Recommendation on 24 June 2025 — so APNG is part of PNG proper rather than a vendor add-on. It had been supported by browsers for years before that, which is why the format was folded into the specification rather than replaced.

Will an APNG favicon animate in the browser tab?

Treat that as a bonus rather than a plan. Browsers differ in whether they animate a favicon at all, and behaviour has changed between releases, so the reliable assumption is that most visitors will see the first frame only. An APNG favicon is still perfectly safe to ship — unsupported viewers fall back to that first frame as a normal PNG — but design that frame to stand on its own.

What frame rate should I choose?

It depends on how many frames you have. For a handful of distinct icons that a viewer needs to read, 1, 2 or 5 FPS gives each one time on screen. For a smooth spinner or progress loop built from many frames, 15 to 30 FPS looks fluid. The default 10 FPS is a reasonable middle ground, and 50 FPS is really only useful for very short, very smooth loops — it also multiplies the file size, since every frame is stored losslessly.

Why is my APNG larger than the original ICO?

Because APNG stores every frame with lossless compression at the full output resolution, while an .ico stores small entries and often reuses a compact palette. Upscaling under Image resolution makes the gap wider still. The file is already run through a lossless optimiser after assembly, so the remaining levers are fewer frames, a smaller output size, or switching to a lossy format such as ICO to WebP.

How are my files handled, and how long are they kept?

Your files are uploaded over an encrypted connection, processed on our servers, and deleted automatically a few hours after conversion — no sign-up, no watermark, never shared or made public.