App Icon Size Guide (iOS and Android)
It's easy to obsess over screenshot specs and then treat the app icon as an afterthought. But the icon is actually your most frequently seen image — it shows up in store listings, search results, and on the home screen — and each platform has its own rules for size and file format. Here's what iOS and Android each require.
iOS App Icon
The marketing icon you submit to App Store Connect is a fixed 1024 × 1024px. It must be a PNG in the RGB color space, and it cannot include an alpha channel (no transparency). You also shouldn't round the corners yourself — the system applies its own rounded-square mask automatically, so your submitted file needs to be a full, square-cornered image.
| Item | Requirement |
|---|---|
| Size | 1024 × 1024px |
| Format | PNG, RGB, no alpha channel |
| Corners | Don't round them yourself — the system masks automatically |
Xcode generates every other icon size — home screen, Settings, notifications, and so on — from this single 1024px source. Unlike the old days of manually exporting a dozen individual sizes, modern iOS projects only need one high-resolution original; the system handles the rest.
Android App Icon
The store-listing icon you upload to Google Play Console is 512 × 512px, a 32-bit PNG with an alpha channel. This icon is what shows up on your store page and in search results — it's a separate file from the icon that actually appears on a user's device.
| Item | Requirement |
|---|---|
| Size | 512 × 512px |
| Format | 32-bit PNG (with alpha channel) |
| Purpose | Play Store listing only |
Adaptive Icons
On Android 8.0 and up, the icon that actually appears on a device is built as an adaptive icon. Instead of one fixed image, you prepare a foreground layer and a background layer separately, and the system applies whatever mask shape the manufacturer or launcher uses on top — circle, rounded square, squircle, and so on.
Both layers are built on a 108 × 108dp canvas, and the rule of thumb is to keep your key graphic elements inside a safe zone — roughly a 66dp-diameter circle at the center — so nothing important gets clipped regardless of which mask ends up applied. If you draw a logo or character all the way to the canvas edge, it risks getting cut off on certain launchers.
iOS vs. Android at a Glance
| iOS | Android | |
|---|---|---|
| Submission size | 1024 × 1024px | 512 × 512px |
| Alpha channel | Not allowed | Allowed |
| Corner handling | System applies mask automatically | Launcher-dependent adaptive mask |
| On-device icon | Auto-generated from submission file | Composed from foreground/background layers |
Bottom Line
iOS just needs one 1024×1024 PNG with no alpha channel. Android needs two separate things: a 512×512 store-listing icon and an adaptive icon built from foreground and background layers on a 108dp canvas. Both platforms share one rule — don't round the corners yourself — so it's safest to start every icon design from a full square original.