App icon sizes for iOS and Android
Design once at 1024 × 1024 and derive everything else. Below: the store sizes, the adaptive icon safe zone, and the six rules that decide whether the icon still works at notification size.
1024²
App Store marketing icon
512²
Google Play listing icon
264²
Android safe zone, centred
iOS — App Store and device sizes
| Slot | Pixels | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| App Store marketing icon | 1024 × 1024 | PNG, no alpha, no rounded corners. Apple applies the mask. |
| iPhone app icon | 180 × 180 | 60 pt at @3x. Generated from the asset catalogue in modern Xcode. |
| iPad Pro app icon | 167 × 167 | 83.5 pt at @2x. |
| iPad app icon | 152 × 152 | 76 pt at @2x. |
| Settings | 87 × 87 | 29 pt at @3x. Where an icon with fine detail visibly falls apart. |
| Spotlight | 120 × 120 | 40 pt at @3x. |
| Notification | 60 × 60 | 20 pt at @3x. The real legibility test. |
iOS now wants four appearances, not one icon
A single opaque square used to be the whole job. iOS 18 added dark and tinted appearances, and Xcode 26 introduced Icon Composer, which takes layered artwork and generates every variant and platform size from one .icon file. If you ship only the default, the system derives the others — usually worse than you would.
| Appearance | What you supply | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Default | Opaque, full-bleed | The icon everyone already has. Square 1024 × 1024, no alpha, no baked corners. |
| Dark | Transparent background | Supply the mark on a transparent background so the system dark backing shows through. Do not just darken the default. |
| Tinted | Greyscale | A greyscale image the system recolours to the user’s accent. Anything relying on brand colour to be readable disappears here. |
| Clear | Layered, via Icon Composer | The Liquid Glass treatment. Needs the layered .icon format rather than a flat export. |
The practical test for the tinted variant: convert your icon to greyscale. If the mark vanishes into its background, the design was carrying its legibility in colour alone and needs a shape change, not a palette change.
Android — Play Store and adaptive icons
| Slot | Pixels | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Play Store listing icon | 512 × 512 | 32-bit PNG, sRGB, under 1024 KB. Full square — Play applies a mask at 30% corner radius plus its own shadow. |
| Adaptive icon layers | 432 × 432 | Foreground and background layers, each full-bleed. |
| Adaptive icon safe zone | 264 × 264 centred | Everything outside this circle can be masked away by the launcher. |
| Legacy launcher icon | 192 × 192 | xxxhdpi. Only needed for very old API levels. |
| Notification icon | 96 × 96 | Monochrome silhouette with transparency, not the full-colour icon. |
Six rules that matter more than the sizes
Getting the dimensions right takes a minute. Getting an icon that survives at 40 px takes judgement.
Design at 1024, judge at 40
The icon you approve on a monitor at full size is not the icon anyone sees. Shrink it to 40 px and look again. If the shape is unreadable, no amount of gradient work will save it.
One idea, not three
A letterform, a silhouette, or an abstract mark. Icons that try to depict the whole product become mush at small sizes. If you cannot describe it in three words, it is too busy.
Never put your app name in the icon
The name already sits directly under the icon in every surface it appears in. Text inside the icon competes with itself and is illegible at notification size.
Respect the Android safe zone
Launchers mask adaptive icons into circles, squircles, rounded squares and teardrops depending on the device. Anything outside the centred 264 px circle of a 432 px canvas may simply be cut off.
No pre-baked corners or shadows on either store
Supply a square canvas with no rounded corners and no drop shadow. Apple applies its superellipse mask; Google Play masks at 30% of the icon size and adds its own shadow. Baking either in produces a visible double edge.
Contrast against both wallpapers
Check the icon on a white home screen and a dark one. A dark mark on a transparent-looking background disappears on half of all devices.
Icon questions
What size should an app icon be?+
1024 × 1024 px for the App Store and 512 × 512 px for Google Play. Design once at 1024 and export down — every in-device size is derived from the same artwork, generated by Xcode's asset catalogue on iOS and by the adaptive icon layers on Android.
Can an iOS app icon have transparency?+
The default appearance cannot — the 1024 × 1024 marketing icon must be flattened and opaque with square corners, and an alpha channel gets it rejected. The dark appearance is the exception: that one is supplied with a transparent background on purpose, so the system backing shows through behind your mark.
Do I need dark and tinted app icon variants?+
They are not required, but the system will derive them from your default icon if you do not supply them, and the derived tinted version is often unreadable. Supplying a dark variant on a transparent background and a greyscale tinted variant takes an hour and is the difference between an icon that looks designed and one that looks flattened.
What corner radius do the app stores use?+
You supply square corners either way and the store rounds them. Google Play applies a mask at 30% of the icon size — about 154 px on a 512 px asset — plus its own drop shadow. Apple applies its own superellipse mask, which is why baking corners into a 1024 × 1024 produces a visible double edge.
What is the Android adaptive icon safe zone?+
On a 432 × 432 layer, only the centred 264 × 264 circle is guaranteed to be visible. Launchers apply their own mask shape, so any logo detail outside that circle can be cropped on some devices and not others.
Does the icon affect App Store ranking?+
Not directly — it is not indexed text. It affects tap-through from search results, which affects installs, which is a ranking input. In practice the icon and the first screenshot are the two assets doing the most work in a search result.
Does this tool generate app icons?+
No. App Mockup Generator AI produces store screenshot artwork — device-framed listing graphics — rather than icons. This page is here because an icon and a gallery are usually decided in the same afternoon.
The other half of a store listing — the gallery itself — is covered in screenshot sizes & safe zones and the screenshot ASO guide.