iOS app icon sizes in 2026: one 1024 px icon, six looks

By Sigsten Gustavii· 27 October 2026· 8 min read

The iOS app icon size you need in 2026 is a single 1024 × 1024 pixel square; iOS makes every smaller size from it and rounds the corners itself.

Older guides list a dozen icon sizes, from 20 points for notifications to 180 pixels for the Home Screen. Those sizes still exist on the phone, but you no longer make them by hand. This guide explains what Apple asks for today, from the Human Interface Guidelines on app icons, what changed with iOS 26 and Liquid Glass, and how to make an icon that looks right in every appearance.

One size: 1024 × 1024

For an iPhone or iPad app, you design one square icon at 1024 × 1024 pixels. Apple's guidelines say the system automatically scales it to produce the smaller variants that appear in places like Settings, Spotlight search and notifications. The same 1024 artwork is what the App Store shows on your product page.

That is the whole size story for most apps. If you are working from an old checklist that asks for 60, 76, 83.5 or 180 pixel files, you can stop: those are what iOS makes from your 1024 icon.

Where your icon appears

Your icon is the most repeated piece of design in your app. Apple's guidelines and App Store Connect help list where it shows up, and each place is a different size and background:

• The Home Screen, among the person's other apps, in whichever appearance they chose.
• Search results, in Spotlight and on the App Store, often very small.
• Notifications and reminders, as a tiny badge beside the message.
• Settings, in the list of apps.
• Share sheets, when someone shares something to or from your app.
• TestFlight, for anyone testing a beta.
• Your App Store product page, at its largest.

Because the smallest of these are only a few millimetres across on the screen, the test of a good icon is whether you can still tell what it is at that size. Design at 1024, but judge it small.

What changed with iOS 26 and Liquid Glass

With iOS 26, Apple's design language moved to Liquid Glass, and icons changed with it. According to the guidelines, iPhone, iPad and Mac icons now include a background layer and one or more foreground layers. The system gives them Liquid Glass qualities such as specular highlights, refraction and translucency, and these effects adapt to the icon's size and can differ between system versions.

You can still provide a single flattened image, and plenty of apps do. Layers give you more control over how the system's effects play across your design. Apple's tool for this is Icon Composer, which comes with Xcode: you import foreground layers, set a background, preview the result in each appearance, and export it for your Xcode project.

The six appearances: default, dark, clear and tinted

People can choose how their Home Screen icons look. The guidelines list six appearances for iPhone, iPad and Mac icons:

Apple's advice is to keep the same core features in every appearance, so people still recognise your app when they switch, and to use your default icon as the basis for the dark one, with complementary colours and nothing excessively bright.

Shape, masking and transparency

• Give Apple a square. iOS applies the rounded-corner mask itself, matched to the curves of the rest of the system. Pre-rounded corners, Apple warns, make edges look jagged and spoil the highlights.
• Keep the main content centred, so nothing important is cut by the corners.
• No transparency in a flattened icon. The App Store and the Home Screen expect an opaque square; a transparent PNG is a common reason an icon is refused. Layered icons use transparency inside Icon Composer, which is different.
• Colour spaces: sRGB, Gray Gamma 2.2 for greyscale, or Display P3 for wide colour.
• Prefer vectors (SVG or PDF) for layers you bring into Icon Composer, and PNG for raster art, which Apple calls out as lossless.

Design rules from Apple's guidelines

1. Keep it simple. One idea, few shapes. Fine detail turns to mush at small sizes and under system highlights.
2. Use text only when it is essential. It cannot be localised, it is usually too small to read, and your app's name already sits under the icon.
3. Prefer illustration to photos. Photos carry too much detail for small sizes and different appearances.
4. Do not copy interface elements or screenshots into the icon.
5. Do not draw Apple hardware. Apple says its products are copyrighted and cannot appear in your icon.
6. Let the system do effects. No baked-in shadows, glows, bevels or blurs; the system adds dynamic ones.

Icons are reviewed with the app, so the App Review Guidelines apply: no misleading imagery, and nothing that copies another app's icon.

Changing your icon later

The icon ships inside your app's build. According to Apple's App Store Connect help, changing it after publishing means uploading a new version of the app and submitting it for review. Apple also lets an app offer alternate icons that people choose in the app's settings; each alternate needs its own dark, clear and tinted variants.

How to test your icon before you publish

1. Shrink it. View your 1024 artwork at a few dozen pixels wide. If the idea disappears, simplify.
2. Put it on a real Home Screen among other apps, on a light and a dark wallpaper.
3. Switch appearances. On an iPhone running iOS 26 or later, long-press the Home Screen, choose Edit, then Customize, and try dark, clear and tinted to see how your icon, or the variants iOS generated, hold up.
4. Check it in a notification if your app sends reminders.
5. Ask someone who has not seen it what the app does, from the icon alone.

Common icon mistakes

How to make an app icon with Borel, step by step

If you build your app with Borel, you do not need a design tool or Xcode to get a correct icon.

1. Describe your app. Borel paints an icon alongside the opening build of every new app, so you have one from the start.
2. Change it while you build. Click the app's name at the top left, then the icon beside it, and upload a picture or have Borel design another one.
3. Or from the Store listing. Use Upload icon for your own image, or describe one under Generate with AI and press Generate. Reset to default goes back to the original.
4. Borel prepares it for Apple. The icon is exported as a 1024 × 1024 PNG and flattened onto white, because Apple refuses an icon with transparency.
5. Check it on the live iPhone in your browser, and on your own iPhone with Companion on Pro, where you can switch your Home Screen to dark or tinted to see the generated looks.
6. Publish. The icon goes to Apple inside the build Borel makes on its Mac.

Design an app icon: a single white water drop on a deep blue gradient, no text, simple enough to read at small sizes.

For the rest of the store listing, see our posts on App Store screenshot sizes and publishing to the App Store without a Mac. Borel's design page shows how its apps look on iOS.

The bottom line

In 2026 an iPhone app icon is one 1024 × 1024 pixel square, opaque, unmasked and simple. iOS makes the smaller sizes and the dark, clear and tinted looks, and layers made in Icon Composer pick up Liquid Glass effects. If you are building an app now, start free on Borel: every new app gets an icon painted with it, and you can change it with one message.

A simple icon beats a clever one at the size people actually see it. If you make one you are proud of on Borel, I would like to see it.

– Sigsten

Make your iPhone app in Borel

Describe the app you want and see its first screens before you pay anything.