PSD to ICO Converter
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Supports: PSD
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Turn a Photoshop design into a Windows .ico icon. Your PSD layers are flattened to a single rendered image, scaled down to a square icon size, and saved as ICO — which, unlike JPG, keeps the alpha transparency from your PSD so the icon's corners and cut-outs stay see-through. Useful for app icons, desktop shortcuts, and favicon.ico files. No sign-up, no watermark.
How to Convert PSD to ICO
- Upload Your PSD File: Drag and drop your
.psdonto the page or click "Add Files". You can queue several at once and convert them with the same settings. - Pick an Icon Size: Open Advanced Options and set the Image resolution preset to the icon dimension you want — 16, 24, 32, 48, 64, 128, 180, 192, or 256 px. ICO is always square and caps at 256×256, so this also downscales a larger PSD.
- Keep Transparency: Leave the design's alpha intact so transparent areas in the PSD carry into the ICO's alpha channel — the main reason to choose ICO over a flat JPG icon.
- Convert and Download: Click Convert and download your
.ico. No sign-up, no watermark.
PSD vs ICO at a Glance
| Property | PSD | ICO |
|---|---|---|
| Full name | Adobe Photoshop Document | Windows Icon |
| Type | Layered, editable still image | Flat icon container |
| Max practical size | Up to 300,000 px per side | 256×256 px (per MDN) |
| Layers | Yes — kept editable | No — flattened on export |
| Transparency | Yes (alpha) | Yes (32-bit RGBA alpha) |
| Holds multiple sizes | No | Yes — one file, several sizes |
| Typical use | Design source file | App icons, shortcuts, favicons |
Frequently Asked Questions
What happens to my PSD layers when I convert to ICO?
They are flattened. Every visible layer, mask, and blend mode is composited down to one rendered image before it is written to ICO, so the result is no longer editable. Keep your original .psd if you need to make changes later — re-export to ICO whenever the design updates.
Does PSD transparency carry over to the ICO file?
Yes. ICO stores 32-bit color with an 8-bit alpha channel, so transparent and semi-transparent areas in your PSD stay transparent in the icon. This is the practical reason to use ICO (or PNG) for icons rather than JPG, which has no transparency and would fill those areas with a solid color.
Why is my ICO smaller than my PSD design?
The Windows icon format tops out at 256×256 pixels (confirmed by MDN's image-type reference). A 2000-pixel Photoshop canvas is downscaled to the icon size you pick — there is no way to make an ICO larger than 256 px. For a full-resolution image, convert to PSD to PNG instead.
Which icon size should I choose?
For a Windows application icon, 256, 48, 32, and 16 px cover most display contexts. For a website favicon.ico, 16 and 32 px are enough — though MDN notes modern sites increasingly use a PNG favicon with a <link> tag instead. In our testing, a 256-px square PSD exported to a single 256×256 ICO at roughly 20-60 KB depending on detail.
Is the PSD to ICO conversion private?
Files are uploaded over an encrypted connection, processed on our servers, and deleted automatically after a few hours — no sign-up, no watermark, never shared or made public. If your source is a flat PNG or JPG rather than a layered PSD, you can also use PNG to ICO.