Turn ICO files into PNG
Your ICO goes in and a PNG comes out. PNG is the usual choice for screenshots, where the text has to stay sharp. Your file never leaves your computer.
Need the other direction? Convert PNG to ICO
How to convert ICO to PNG
- 1 Drop your ICO .ico file onto the page, or click to browse for it.
- 2 Check the options. Nothing is thrown away on the way to PNG, so there is no quality dial to set.
- 3 Convert. The work happens on your own machine, so how long it takes depends on your computer and the file.
- 4 Download the PNG, or add more files and do the whole set in one go.
Why convert ICO to PNG
- Nothing is ever thrown away, so re-saving never degrades the picture.
- Smooth, partial transparency rather than hard on-or-off edges.
- Charts, diagrams and line art with flat colour areas.
- ICO: not a general purpose image format for content.
ICO compared with PNG
How the two formats differ on the things that decide whether a conversion is worth making.
| Property | ICO | PNG |
|---|---|---|
| File extension | .ico | .png |
| Compression | Lossy or lossless | Lossless |
| Multiple pages | Yes | No |
| Colour depth | Up to 32-bit with alpha | Up to 16 bits per channel, 48-bit colour |
| Typical file size | Depends on mode | Larger |
| Introduced | 1985 | 1996 |
| Developed by | Microsoft | PNG Development Group / W3C |
| Standard | Proprietary | Open |
Quality and what changes
PNG stores the same content under a different set of rules, so what matters here is compatibility rather than picture quality. Convert once from the best source you have rather than through a chain of intermediate files.
- A multi-page ICO produces one PNG per page.
- One PNG limitation to keep in mind: no native animation support outside the rarely used APNG extension.
Questions about ICO to PNG
What happens to a multi-page ICO?
PNG holds one page, so each page becomes a separate file and you get the set as a ZIP. Nothing is discarded, it just cannot stay in a single document.
Is my ICO file uploaded anywhere?
No. The whole thing runs inside the browser tab you already have open. Your ICO is read straight from your own disk, converted on your machine and handed back as a PNG. Nothing is sent anywhere, nothing is stored and there is no account.
Is there a file size limit?
There is no server-side limit because no server sees the file. The real ceiling is your device memory, since the input and the output both have to fit in the tab. A few hundred megabytes is usually fine on a desktop machine and considerably less on a phone.
Can I convert several ICO files at once?
Yes. Add as many as you like and they are processed one after another, then offered as separate PNG downloads or as a single ZIP. Speed depends on your own processor rather than on a queue.
Does the converter work offline?
Yes, after the page has loaded once. The engine is cached by the browser, so you can disconnect, reload and keep converting. That falls out of doing the work locally rather than being a separate mode you switch on.