Turn ICO files into TIFF
This makes a TIFF out of the ICO you already have. ICO is the icon file that Windows and browsers use, and it holds several sizes of the same picture in one file so nothing ever has to be stretched. Worth knowing: a TIFF will not open in a browser tab, so it is a file for software rather than for the web. Your file never leaves your computer.
Need the other direction? Convert TIFF to ICO
How to convert ICO to TIFF
- 1 Drop your ICO .ico file onto the page, or click to browse for it.
- 2 Set the quality, or leave the default, which keeps the file small without anything showing.
- 3 Convert. The work happens on your own machine, so how long it takes depends on your computer and the file.
- 4 Download the TIFF, or add more files and do the whole set in one go.
Why convert ICO to TIFF
- Keeps every detail and every shade, with proper colour management.
- Multiple pages in a single file, useful for scanned documents.
- Mapping and satellite imagery, as GeoTIFF.
- ICO: each picture inside it is capped at a small size.
ICO compared with TIFF
How the two formats differ on the things that decide whether a conversion is worth making.
| Property | ICO | TIFF |
|---|---|---|
| File extension | .ico | .tiff |
| Colour depth | Up to 32-bit with alpha | Up to 32 bits per channel, RGB, CMYK, Lab and greyscale |
| Browser support | Every browser | No browser support |
| Introduced | 1985 | 1986 |
| Developed by | Microsoft | Aldus, now Adobe |
| Standard | Proprietary | Open |
Quality and what changes
TIFF 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.
- Browsers will not display a TIFF, so it downloads rather than opening in a tab.
- One TIFF limitation to keep in mind: no browser displays TIFF natively, so the web needs a conversion.
Questions about ICO to TIFF
Can I open a TIFF in a browser?
No. No mainstream browser renders TIFF natively, so it will download rather than display. That is fine when the file is heading into desktop software or an archive, and a problem if it is going on a web page.
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 TIFF. 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 TIFF 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.