SVG to ICO converter
Convert SVG images to ICO in your browser.
Processed in your browser. This file is converted on your device and is never uploaded.
Converter
.svg up to 50 MB. You can also drag a file here.
No file selected.
About this tool
SVG is a vector format produced by design tools, so it scales to any size cleanly. An ICO holds several sizes in one file, so a browser or desktop can pick the right one instead of scaling a single image badly.
This tool converts SVG to ICO entirely in your browser. The image is decoded, drawn, and re-encoded on your device, so nothing is uploaded and the size of the file costs you no waiting.
Supported formats and limits
- Input
- .svg
- Output
- .ico (image/x-icon)
- Output name
- The original name with the new extension, for example photo.svg becomes photo.ico.
- File size limit
- 50 MB
- Processing
- In your browser. The file is not uploaded.
SVG against ICO
| Feature | SVG | ICO |
|---|---|---|
| Compression | None, stored as written | Lossless |
| Colour | Shapes, not pixels | 8 bits per channel |
| Transparency | Full alpha channel | Full alpha channel |
| Animation | Yes | No |
| Keeps EXIF | No | No |
| Browser support | Chrome 4, Firefox 3, Safari 3.2 | Every browser since 1999 |
| Size of a photograph | Not a format for photographs | Not a format for photographs |
| Published | 2001 | 1985 |
When you would want this
It has to open on something old
ICO has been readable everywhere for decades, and SVG has not: software written before it existed simply cannot open it. If the file is going to somebody whose tools you do not control — a print shop, a client on an old machine, an internal system nobody has updated — this is the conversion that stops the conversation about why it will not open.
You are making a favicon
A browser looking for a tab icon asks for /favicon.ico, and expects a file holding several sizes rather than one. This writes 16, 32 and 48 pixel versions into a single ICO, each rendered from your SVG rather than scaled down from one another, which is what keeps the small one legible instead of smudged.
Something has to accept an ordinary image
SVG is a set of shapes, and plenty of places will not take one: an email client, a marketplace listing, an office document, a social preview. Turning it into ICO fixes it at a size you choose now, which is the point — pick the size it will be shown at, and the result is exactly as sharp as it needs to be.
You want one picture out of the sequence
SVG can hold a whole animation and ICO holds a single image, so this conversion is how you get a poster frame, a thumbnail, or a still to put in a document. It takes the first frame. If you want all of them as separate files, the animated GIF to PNG frames tool does that instead.
How to use it
- Choose a .svg file, or drag one onto the page.
- Icon sizes 16, 32, and 48 pixels are written into the one file.
- Set an output size if the SVG does not carry one, or a scale to render it larger.
- Select Convert, then download the ICO file.
Limitations
- An SVG with no width and height of its own needs an output size, because there is nothing to derive one from.
- Fonts and images the SVG references from elsewhere are not fetched, so text in an unusual font may render with a substitute or not at all.
- Scripts, event handlers, and external references are stripped before the file is rendered.
- Icons are square. A rectangular source is fitted into the square, which changes its proportions.
- An icon can be at most 256 pixels, which is a limit of the format.
- Metadata is not preserved. EXIF fields, including camera settings and GPS location, are dropped, which is a privacy benefit but worth knowing if you rely on them.
- Colour profiles are not preserved, so an image in a wide-gamut profile may shift slightly.
Common problems
Only the first frame came out
SVG can hold a sequence of frames and ICO holds exactly one picture. There is nowhere in a ICO to put the rest, so the first frame is what gets written.
Use the animated GIF to PNG frames tool if you want every frame as a separate image. To keep the animation itself, convert to WebP, which can hold one.
The ICO is blurry, or the wrong size
An SVG has no pixels: it is a set of shapes that can be drawn at any size. Writing it as ICO means choosing one size and fixing it, and if that size is small the result has no detail to enlarge.
Give the width and height you actually need before converting, and pick the size the ICO will be displayed at, or larger. Enlarging afterwards will not bring detail back.
The icon does not appear in the browser tab
Browsers cache favicons aggressively and often keep an old one, or none, for a while. A missing icon after converting SVG to ICO is usually the cache rather than the file.
Put the file at /favicon.ico in the site root, then load the page with a hard refresh, or open /favicon.ico directly to confirm the file itself is being served.
Other ways to do this
The program already on your computer
GIMP and dedicated icon editors; most image editors will not write one will open a SVG and save it as ICO, and if you have one of them installed and only one file to convert, that is a perfectly good answer. It stays on your machine the same way this does. Where it stops being convenient is a folder of forty files, or a machine you do not own.
ImageMagick, from a terminal
One command converts a directory: magick mogrify -format ICO *.SVG. If you already have it installed this is the fastest way to do a hundred files, and it scripts. It is also a dependency to install and a syntax to learn, which is a poor trade for converting one image once.
An online converter that uploads
Most sites offering this send your file to a server, convert it there, and give you a link back. They can do formats a browser cannot, which is a real advantage. The cost is that your file was on somebody else's machine, governed by a retention policy you did not read. That is the whole difference here: this page converts SVG to ICO using code your browser already downloaded, so there is no server holding it afterwards.
Frequently asked questions
- Is my image uploaded?
- No. The conversion runs entirely in your browser. The image never leaves your device and no request carrying it is made.
- Does converting to ICO lose any quality?
- The conversion itself does not. ICO is lossless, so every pixel it is handed is written exactly as it arrived and nothing is discarded on the way. What it cannot do is recover detail your SVG had already lost before it got here: a lossless format preserves what it is given, it does not restore what is gone.
- What happens to the animation?
- SVG can hold a sequence of frames, and this conversion writes the first one. There is no way to fold an animation into a single still image, so the choice is which frame, and the first is the one that makes sense as a thumbnail. To keep every frame as its own file, use the animated GIF to PNG frames tool instead.
- Will this work as a favicon?
- Yes. The file holds 16, 32, and 48 pixel versions in one icon, which is what browsers expect at /favicon.ico, and each size is rendered from your image rather than scaled from one another.
- Why is my SVG asking for a size?
- Because it declares only a viewBox and no width or height, so there is no pixel size to use. Give a width, a height, or a scale.
- Is it safe to convert an SVG I did not write?
- Yes. SVG can carry scripts and references that fetch from other sites, so the markup is parsed and stripped of scripts, event handlers, and external references before anything is rendered, and rendering happens in a context where scripts do not run.
- Can I resize while converting?
- Yes. Set a width, a height, or both. With proportions kept, one dimension is derived from the other, and giving both fits the image inside that box rather than distorting it.
- Do I need to install anything or create an account to use SVG to ICO converter?
- No, to all of it. SVG to ICO converter runs inside the browser you already have, with no sign-up, no download, no watermark on the result, and no cap on how many files you convert. There is nothing to uninstall afterwards either, because nothing was installed.
- Does SVG to ICO converter work offline?
- Once the page has loaded, yes. The conversion runs on your device, so it needs no connection to do the work. The first visit fetches the page and the code that does the converting; after that a lost connection stops nothing, and a converted file appears exactly as it would online.
- How large a file can SVG to ICO converter handle?
- The limit is 50 MB. It is a deliberate one rather than a technical ceiling: the real constraint is memory, and a file that decodes to more than the device can hold fails in a way that is hard to explain. Phones run out well before laptops do, which is why the limit is set where it is.
- Can I convert several files at once with SVG to ICO converter?
- Not here: this tool takes one file at a time, because what it does depends on choices you make about that particular file. Convert them one after another, or look at the batch converters in the same category, which are built for a folder at a time.