What is android launcher icon

Launcher Icons

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New Guides for App Designers!

Check out the new documents for designers at Android Design, including more guidelines for Iconography.

A launcher icon is a graphic that represents your application. Launcher icons are used by Launcher applications and appear on the user’s Home screen. Launcher icons can also be used to represent shortcuts into your application (for example, a contact shortcut icon that opens detail information for a contact).

As described in Providing Density-Specific Icon Sets and Supporting Multiple Screens, you should create separate icons for all generalized screen densities, including low-, medium-, high-, and extra-high-density screens. This ensures that your icons will display properly across the range of devices on which your application can be installed. See Tips for Designers for suggestions on how to work with multiple sets of icons.

A high-resolution version of your application launcher icon is also required by Google Play for use in application listings. For more details on this, see Application Icons on Google Play below.

Note: The launcher icon guidelines pertaining to all versions of Android have been re-written. If you need to review the old guidelines, see the launcher icon guidelines archive.

Goals of the Launcher Icon

Figure 1. Example launcher icons for system applications (left) and third-party applications (right).

Application launcher icons have three primary goals:

1. Promote the brand and tell the story of the app.
2. Help users discover the app on Google Play.
3. Function well in the Launcher.

Promote the brand story

App launcher icons are an opportunity to showcase the brand and hint at the story of what your app is about. Thus, you should:

• Create an icon that is unique and memorable.
• Use a color scheme that suits your brand.
• Don’t try to communicate too much with the icon. A simple icon will have more impact and be more memorable.
• Avoid including the application name in the icon. The app name will always be displayed adjacent to the icon.

Help users discover the app on Google Play

App launcher icons are the first look that prospective users will get of your app on Google Play. A high quality app icon can influence users to find out more as they scroll through lists of applications.

Quality matters here. A well-designed icon can be a strong signal that your app is of similarly high quality. Consider working with an icon designer to develop the app’s launcher icon.

Note: Google Play requires a high-resolution version of your icon; for more details on this, see Application Icons in Google Play below.

Function well in the Launcher

The launcher is where users will interact with the icon most frequently. A successful app launcher icon will look great in all situations: on any background and next to any other icons and app widgets. To do this, icons should:

• Communicate well at small sizes.
• Work on a wide variety of backgrounds.
• Reflect the implied lighting model of the launcher (top-lit).
• If the icon is 3D, use a perspective that doesn’t feel out of place with other icons; forward-facing works best.
  • 3D icons work best with a shallow depth.
• Have a unique silhouette for faster recognition; not all Android app icons should be square.
  • Icons should not present a cropped view of a larger image.
• Have similar weight to other icons. Icons that are too spindly or that don’t use enough of the space may not successfully attract the user’s attention, or may not stand out well on all backgrounds.

Do’s and Don’ts

Below are some «do and don’t» examples to consider when creating icons for your application.

	Icons should not be overly complicated. Remember that launcher icons will be used at often small sizes, so they should be distinguishable at small sizes.
	Icons should not be cropped. Use unique shapes where appropriate; remember that launcher icons should differentiate your application from others. Additionally, do not use too glossy a finish unless the represented object has a glossy material.
	Icons should not be thin. They should have a similar weight to other icons. Overly thin icons will not stand out well on all backgrounds.
	Icons should make use of the alpha channel, and should not simply be full-frame images. Where appropriate, distinguish your icon with subtle yet appealing visual treatment.

Size and Format

Launcher icons should be 32-bit PNGs with an alpha channel for transparency. The finished launcher icon dimensions corresponding to a given generalized screen density are shown in the table below.

Table 1. Summary of finished launcher icon dimensions for each generalized screen density.

ldpi (120 dpi) (Low density screen)	mdpi (160 dpi) (Medium density screen)	hdpi (240 dpi) (High density screen)	xhdpi (320 dpi) (Extra-high density screen)
Launcher Icon Size	36 x 36 px	48 x 48 px	72 x 72 px	96 x 96 px

You can also include a few pixels of padding in launcher icons to maintain a consistent visual weight with adjacent icons. For example, a 96 x 96 pixel xhdpi launcher icon can contain a 88 x 88 pixel shape with 4 pixels on each side for padding. This padding can also be used to make room for a subtle drop shadow, which can help ensure that launcher icons are legible across on any background color.

Application Icons on Google Play

If you are publishing your app on Google Play, you will also need to provide a 512 x 512 pixel, high-resolution application icon in the developer console at upload time. This icon will be used in various locations on Google Play and does not replace your launcher icon.

For tips and recommendations on creating high-resolution launcher icons that can easily be scaled up to 512×512, see Tips for Designers.

For information and specifications about high-resolution application icons on Google Play, see the following article:

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Tek Eye

The icon for your app is quite important. It is the thing that represents your app on the Android device screen. Therefore, a professional and unique icon should be produced for your app. Making a set of app icons could be time consuming. However, Android Studio now has the Launcher Icon Generator to help with the process. Though using a graphics package like Inkscape to make Android icons can produce higher quality images. The Android icon size table in this article summarizes all the relevant information for the required icon sizes.

What is the Android Icon Size for an App?

Android launcher icons can be in jpeg (JPG) format, or more commonly in the Portable Network Graphics (PNG) format. For all the launcher icons you will need two lots of six sizes of PNG or JPG files. One set of six icons are square, plus for newer versions of Android, one set of icons are round. Also, there is the high resolution icon to be produced for the Google Play store listing. The six sizes in pixels are 36×36, 48×48, 72×72, 96×96, 144×144 and 192×192. The Play store high-res icon is 512×512. These sizes are the absolute sizes of the icons. It was recommended in the past to allow for a small margin, hence the area the icon is drawn in will be a bit smaller.

For the, now rarely used, low density screens the 36×36 icon is used. However, Android Studio will not generate the default 36×36 icon. Instead, if the app is run on a device with a low density screen, and the 36×36 icon is not present, then Android will use the 72×72 icon scaled down by half. If required, the 36×36 icon can be included in the app for completeness.

Android Screen Densities

The number of dots (pixels) per inch that an Android device’s screen holds determines how sharp the image on the screen looks. The more Dots Per Inch (DPI) the sharper the image. Android will group screen densities into several classes, medium, high, extra high, extra extra high and extra extra extra high! These are referred to as MDPI, HDPI, XHDPI, XXHDPI and XXXHDPI. There is also a low density class, LDPI, however not many new devices have a low density screen and thus LDPI is no longer important. MDPI is around 160 DPI, HDPI around 240 DPI, XHDPI around 320 DPI, XXHDPI around 480 DPI and XXXHDPI around 640 DPI. (LDPI is around 120 DPI). It is the screen density that determines the Android icon size used.

Android Launcher Icon Name and Location

When a new Android project is created in Android Studio the launcher icon files are called ic_launcher.png and ic_launcher_round.png. You can choose to change the default icon using Android Studio’s built in Asset Studio:

To use Asset Studio open it from within Android Studio using the New menu then select Image Asset. This allows you to configure the launcher icon based on different clip arts, images and colors. The various size icons are created and placed into various mipmap folders in the projects res directory. The folders are mipmap-mdpi, mipmap-hdpi, mipmap-xhdpi, mipmap-xxhdpi and mipmap-xxxhdpi. It you need a low density, LDPI, icon create and put a 36×36 PNG or JPG in a mipmap-ldpi folder.

(In older versions of Android the folders used to be named drawable, i.e. drawable-ldpi, drawable-mdpi, drawable-hdpi, drawable-xhdpi, drawable-xxhdpi and drawable-xxxhdpi. For the very first version of Android, to support Cupcake devices, i.e. API level 3, a single drawable folder was used and contained the 48×48 MDPI PNG or JPG file.)

Notice how the reference to the icon only needs the mipmap part of the folder name. Android works out the correct density icon to use. Android will also scale one of the other density icons if an icon at a certain density is missing (though that may result in a fuzzy icon being displayed on the screen).

Android Icon Margins

The Android Operating System (OS) has evolved since it was released. This means that the icon requirements have changed over the years. The main changes for icons are to support the increase in screen sizes and screen densities. Low density and medium density devices were common. Now high density and extra high density devices are the most common.

Previously it was recommend that the icon included a margin around one twelfth of the total size between the edge of the icon and the image it contained. For example the medium density icon is 48×48 pixels, one twelfth of this is 4, giving a margin of 4 pixels around the icon’s image. This meant the area available for the image was 40×40 (48 minus the margin of 4 pixels on each side).

However, the bigger screens on today’s devices gives more room for the icons so a smaller margin can be used, for example one eighteenth of the icon size. The use of a margin allows image spacing between the icons on a screen, and to allow for any drop shadows, or parts of an image that sticks out from main image content.

The High Resolution Application Icon needed for the Google Play store must be 512×512 in size. This image can have a margin to allow for padding or drop shadows, for example it could be 464×464 on the 512×512 canvas giving 48 pixels for padding and drop shadows. Again the size of the margin may depend upon the type of image being used, but the final file will be a 512×512 in size.

Android Bitmap Assets Ratios

With the 48×48 icon as baseline the 6 launcher icons have the ratios 0.75, 1, 1.5, 2, 3 and 4. These ratios apply to the screen densities. So a high density screen (HDPI) is 1.5 times a medium density screen (MDPI). I.e. 1.5 * 160 = 240. Likewise for the other densities. These ratios generally apply to all images used in an app that target different screen densities. If a bitmap is 100×100 on a medium density screen use the ratios to calculate the bitmap sizes required for other densities (75, 150, 200, 300 and 400 in this case). When generating icons and bitmap assets work at a high resolution and scale down, this prevents pixelation of the images. E.g. a canvas of 576×576 or 864×864 is good for design work. An art-board of those sizes is bigger than the biggest icon required (512×512 for the Google Play store). Even better use a vector drawing package such as Inkscape which effectively allows working at any resolution.

Android Icon Size Table

The following table summarizes the above information, remember to have one square and one round icon for the six screen sizes (or just five if not supporting the out-of-date low density screens).

List of Android Icon Sizes and Locations in the Apps Project

Density	size	Location (under res)	Ratio	Screen	Margin
XXXHDPI	192×192	mipmap-xxxhdpi	4	640 DPI	12 to 16 pixels
XXHDPI	144×144	mipmap-xxhdpi	3	480 DPI	8 to 12 pixels
XHDPI	96×96	mipmap-xhdpi	2	320 DPI	6 to 8 pixels
HDPI	72×72	mipmap-hdpi	1.5	240 DPI	4 to 6 pixels
MDPI	48×48	mipmap-mdpi	1	160 DPI	3 to 4 pixels
LDPI (optional)	36×36	mipmap-ldpi	0.75	120 DPI	2 to 3 pixels
NA	512×512	Google Play	NA	NA	As required

You will find a handful of Android icons used in Tek Eye projects on the Free Launcher Icons, Menu Icons and Android Graphics page, and of course many thousands more on the web.

For information on designing Android icons see the Android Icons Style web page on the Material Design web site.

See Also

• See the Tek Eye Android Studio example projects to learn Android app programming.
• For a full list of the articles on Tek Eye see the full site Index

Author: Daniel S. Fowler Published: 2018-05-06

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