This article has now been superseded by the latest Lollipop 6.0 Android Icon Size Guide. Please click on the image below for the latest information.
What are Android Icon Sizes?
It is a simple question but even Android, who provide better documentation than most, seems to make you want to work a little for the answer. Fear not, I have done the work for you!
Android Icon Sizes – App Launcher
What sizes do I need for Android App launcher icons? If you want to design your own or commission a professional to design your custom icons, you really need to know the right sizes.
Quick answer: 48 px, 72 px, 96 px, 144 px, 192 px & 512 px (for Google Play Store).
What about the Google Play Icon?
Google play requires a single additional version of the Icon in 512 x 512 pixels.
Understanding Android Icon Sizes
Android approach their Icon Size documentation slightly differently to other platforms, concentrating on different pixel densities rather than the simple facts we want. However, it is worth taking a moment to understand why they use this approach.
As technology has progressed, manufacturers have brought out hardware with ever increasing resolutions and pixel density. An increase in pixel density or dots per inch (dpi), basically means more image information can be displayed with.
- MDPI – Medium Pixel Density – also known as the ‘Baseline’
- HDPI – High Pixel Density
- XHDPI – Extra High Pixel Density
- XXHDPI – Extra Extra High Pixel Density
Note: Android also supports low-density (LDPI) screens, but you normally don’t need to create custom assets at this size because Android effectively down-scales your HDPI assets by 1/2 to match the expected size.
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Android Icon Sizes – User interface
All Android icons follow the same scaling rules, so when creating your icon files you must make 5 versions to cover all the platforms available. The table below shows the pixel densities and icon sizes for the different types of user interface icons used by Android:
MDPI (Baseline) | HDPI | XHDPI | XXHDPI | XXXHDPI | |
Scale | 1 x | 1.5 x | 2 x | 3 x | 4 x |
DPI | ~ 160 dpi | ~ 240 dpi | ~ 320 dpi | ~ 480 dpi | ~ 640 dpi |
App Launcher Icons | 48 px | 72 px | 96 px | 144 px | 192 px |
Action bar Icons | 32 px (24px inset) | 48 px | 64 px | 96 px | 128 px |
Small / Contextual Icons | 16 px (12px inset) | 24 px | 32 px | 48 px | 64 px |
Notification Icons | 24 px (22px inset) | 36 px | 48 px | 72 px | 96 px |
Whilst the user interface icons follow the same scaling rules as the app launcher icon, they also have some additional display rules of their own:
Android Action bar Icon Sizes
Action Bar Icons require a file size of 32×32 pixels at the baseline size (MDPI). However, the image itself must be no more than 24×24 pixels centred within the Icon file.
The Icon Design must be single colour #666666 with a transparency set to 60%
Android Small / Contextual Icon Sizes
Action Bar Icons require a file size of 16×16 pixels at the baseline size (MDPI). However, the image itself must be no more than 12×12 pixels centred within the Icon file.
The Icon Design must be single colour #666666 with a transparency set to 60%
Android Notification Icon Sizes
Action Bar Icons require a file size of 24×24 pixels at the baseline size (MDPI). However, the image itself must be no more than 22×22 pixels centred within the Icon file.
The Icon Design must be single colour white, #ffffff.
Android’s own icon guide can be found here:
I hope this Android Icon size guide has been helpful. Please let me know if there is something else you would like me to add or elaborate on. Thanks!
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what about the ldpi icon http://tekeye.biz/2013/android-icon-size
Hi,
Thanks for the reply.
From Android:
“Note: Android also supports low-density (LDPI) screens, but you normally don’t need to create custom assets at this size because Android effectively down-scales your HDPI assets by 1/2 to match the expected size.”
http://developer.android.com/design/style/iconography.html
I’ll add that to the Blog post.
I hope that helps.
Cheers.
Adam 🙂
Good information.
Hi guys. Is it possible to set the height of the app icon to match the height of the action bar?
Hi Jerico,
Thanks for posting. I don’t work on App development, just design to spec but I believe if you try and use larger icons sizes in the Action bar (or anywhere else) Android will just scale them to the standard size.
So I would say a tentative no but an App Developer may be able to help you more.
Cheers,
Adam
Sorry but I don’t get the density-resolution-dp-dpi thing. So if I want to support all densities, I should make 5 files – 48X48px/72X72px/96X96px/144X144px/192X192px.
That’s fine, but what resolution in pixels/inch should I input?
Is it 72 for all of them as per default? Or is it 160/240/320/480/640 pixels/inch?
I really don’t get what values for width, height and resolution to input for each file in Photoshop new file window!
Anyone willing to explain and help?
Hi Pete,
I’ll keep it simple, just use 72dpi in Photoshop, along with the file dimensions in pixels.
Adam 🙂
Clear and simple. Thank you!
Thanks for this! Would be nice if you could include the inset/un-padded dimensions in your table too, e.g. for notification icons.
Also, the ‘Iconography’ part of the Android design docs says that notification icons should be white, not #666666. I’m not sure about transparency, I’ve taken a gamble on all pixels being either white or transparent and it looks OK.
Hi Neil,
Thanks for the notification colour correction, post updated. 🙂
If I can fit the inset dimensions in the table I will.
Cheers,
Adam
Nice and simple and extremely useful.
Thank you very much!
Hi there,
I wrote a command line tool which can convert icons automatically to the right sizes for the different screen densities and which also saves everything in the right directories – it even supports the version structure of androids res/ folder.
The main idea is to have one SVG file for each icon. You do not have to have different SVG files for the states (e.g. enabled and disabled) but you can use icon-converter to change one or more colors in the icon.
Having all the SVG’s, you can simply write a .sh script to “compile” all the icons at once, meaning that icon-converter creates all PNG’s with the given settings (density, colors, scale, even versioning is supported, renaming files so that you can find them after compiling). The PNG’s are then stored directly in the right drawable-directories. E.g. when you change an icon which has different states, you only have to execute your script once and do not have to export PNG’s by yourself.
Please have a look at this tool, there are some examples online:
iconconverter.android-msapps.com
It runs on Linux and Windows.
Thanks for that, sounds useful. What kind of sampling algorithm does it use?
Adam
Hi Adam,
The conversion from .SVG to .PNG is done by the command line tool “convert” (ImageMagic).
On top of this I implemented the “android rules” and the recoloring.
best
Markus
Thanks a lot !!!
Hi Adam,
Is it possible to do for Iphone apps 🙂
Thanks,
Moin
Hi Moin,
Yes we have one here:
https://www.creativefreedom.co.uk/icon-designers-blog/apple-iphone-and-ipad-app-icon-sizes/
I don’t think iOS9 has brought anything new but will post an update if it has.
Adam
Adam
Hi Adam.
Do you know what optimal size is for large notification icon?
Hello Kuanysh,
Please have a look at our updated post on Lollipop Icon Sizes for the information you are after.
https://www.creativefreedom.co.uk/icon-designers-blog/simple-android-icon-size-guide-for-lollipop-5-1/
Thanks,
Adam
Love the way you simplified the matrix
Thanks Rohit, I do try and keep it simple when I can.
What do you think of our updated guide?
https://www.creativefreedom.co.uk/icon-designers-blog/simple-android-icon-size-guide-for-lollipop-5-1/
Try this online tool App icon generator for Android and IOS https://en.inettools.net/app/image/index/26
Why should action bar icons be only #666666 color with 60% ?
Hi Avinash,
This article is for Android 4.1 which is now obsolete. I suggest checking out our newer guide for an overview or Android’s own information for more detail.
https://www.creativefreedom.co.uk/icon-designers-blog/simple-android-icon-size-guide-for-lollipop-5-1/
https://www.google.com/design/spec/style/icons.html
Thanks,
Adam
Excellent information.
I have a question though. What’s the downside of using only one launcher icon for the highest density available or even higher and expect for Android to scale it for lower screen densities. For example I could use a 512×512 px icon since that’s required for publishing my app and Android could scale that icon to ldpi, hdpi, xhdpi, etc. Is that ok? Thanks in advance.
Hi Alejandro,
Thanks for your comment it is a very good question.
What will happen is automated scaling of the large icon and whilst you may think that is all an icon designer will do anyway, it isn’t!
Each icon size MUST be redrawn pixel perfect for each size if you want a clean and sharp looking icon. When you scale automatically you often end up with a line that wants to sit between two pixels and of course it cannot, so what you get is a blurred line. We wrote an article about the results you can get from many of the available online icon scaling tools which you can read here:
https://www.creativefreedom.co.uk/icon-designers-blog/icon-maker-software-review/
You will notice that none of the automated tools can do as good a job as a designer, they just aren’t smart enough and the same will be the case if you let Android scale down a large icon, things look blurry 🙁
Horizontal, vertical and diagonal lines are the worse culprits for scaling badly. If your icon is all circles and curves, you may get away with it. 😉
Thanks,
Adam
Help!
I’m creating an icon for a sign-up screen in Android.
It’s asking us for icons sized for “android:icon” and “android:small icon”.
After reading your excellent article above, does this mean I have to create 10 separate icons: 5 sized large and 5 at some smaller size?
Many thanks
Hi Alison,
No you only need the 5 sizes specified but make sure you use the latest requirements you can find here:
https://www.creativefreedom.co.uk/icon-designers-blog/simple-android-icon-size-guide-for-lollipop-5-1/
Thanks,
Adam 🙂
Hi Adam, i was looking around icons sizes for map marker, the icon i use become blur and if i use high resolution it shows complete height width ? can you help
Hello Khalid, can you send me a screenshot of what is going on, as well as your icon file? That might help me understand the issue.
Thanks.
Adam
This is a great guide! I’m glad I found it.