Your app icon must be 512×512 px (32-bit PNG, no transparency, under 1024 KB) for Google Play and 1024×1024 px (PNG, sRGB or P3, no transparency, square) for the Apple App Store. Design one bold shape or letter, keep key elements inside a 15-18% safe-zone padding, and don't round the corners yourself — both stores mask the shape for you. As of March 31, 2026, Google Play auto-renders every icon with a 30% corner radius, so your edges no longer matter the way they used to.
What are the exact app icon sizes for each store?
| Store | Master icon size | Format | Rules | |-------|------------------|--------|-------| | Google Play | 512×512 px | 32-bit PNG | No transparency, under 1024 KB | | Apple App Store | 1024×1024 px | PNG | sRGB or P3, no transparency, square |
That's it. Two master assets, one per store. You don't hand-cut a dozen sizes anymore — both stores take your single high-res icon and generate every placement themselves, from the 48px search-result thumbnail to the home-screen tile.
The two hard rules that trip people up: no transparency and no manual corner rounding. On Google Play your PNG can't have an alpha channel, and on the App Store every pixel needs a color value. And do not round the corners yourself — Apple applies its squircle mask, Google applies its own rounding, and if you pre-round the corners you end up with a weird double-rounded edge or transparent gaps the store fills with who-knows-what.
I learned the transparency rule the embarrassing way. My first Play upload had a transparent background because that's how I'd exported it from my design tool out of habit. Google rejected it, I didn't read the error closely, and I burned half an hour re-exporting three times before I noticed the "32-bit, no alpha" line. Flatten your background to a solid color or a full-bleed graphic and you'll never hit that wall.
Google keeps the current numbers on the Play icon design specifications page, and it's worth a bookmark since they revise it every couple of years — which they just did, as you'll see next.
What changed with the 2026 Google Play corner-radius rule?
As of March 31, 2026, Google Play automatically renders every app icon with a 30% corner radius across the store — search results, listings, carousels, the lot. This is part of the broader push toward a softer, more rounded Material 3 look, and the point is visual consistency: every icon in the store now shares the same rounded shape instead of some being circles, some squares, some squircles.
What this means for you, practically:
- Stop designing your own rounded corners or circular badges. If your icon was a circle on a transparent background, that look is gone — Google now crops your square 512×512 into its own 30% rounded shape. Design a full-bleed square and let the platform do the rounding. - Keep the important stuff inside a safe zone. Google recommends your key visual elements — the logo, the letter, the symbol — sit inside roughly a 15-18% internal padding so the corner mask never clips anything you care about. I treat it as: imagine the outer ~15% of the canvas might get trimmed, so don't put anything load-bearing out there. - Re-check your existing icon. If you shipped an icon before March 2026 that relied on sharp corners or a distinctive non-square shape, pull it up against the new 30% mask. Mine had a tiny detail in the bottom-right that the new rounding ate. Five-minute fix, but only because I caught it.
The upside is you no longer fight the corners at all. Design a clean square, respect the padding, export, done. The let's-dev and AppsOnAir writeups both confirmed the same 30% figure independently, so it's not a rumor — it's live.
Why does the icon matter more than any single screenshot?
Your screenshots live on the store listing — a place people only reach after they've already decided you're worth a tap. Your icon, though, is everywhere *before* that: in search results, in category browse, in the "you might also like" carousel, in the install confirmation, and then on the user's home screen forever after they install. It does more selling per pixel than any other asset you'll ever make.
And it's tiny. By the time it's a 48-72px thumbnail in search, every fine detail has dissolved. So the test for a good icon isn't "does it look great at 512px" — it's "is it still instantly recognizable at 48px." Apple's own guidance says the same thing: design at 1024 but verify readability at the smallest sizes, and if details vanish at 40px, simplify.
What survives that shrink? One bold shape. One letter. One symbol with high contrast against a solid field. What dies? Thin lines, gradients with subtle stops, text (especially your app's name — it's already printed right next to the icon, so repeating it inside is wasted space), and anything with more than two or three colors.
Google explicitly bans badges, promotional text like "FREE" or "50% OFF," and misleading graphics inside the icon, so don't even try. The icon's job is identity, not advertising. I once watched a friend cram a "NEW" ribbon into his icon corner; it got flagged, and even if it hadn't, it just looked cheap at thumbnail size. Once your icon's locked, the next battle is the listing itself — and that's where framed screenshots earn their keep, which I broke down in how to make app screenshots that get downloads.
How do you design an icon that reads at every size?
Start with one idea, not three. Pick a single concept — your brand letter, a recognizable object, an abstract mark — and commit. The strongest icons in any category are usually the simplest. A meditation app that's just a soft leaf. A finance app that's one bold initial. Resist the urge to illustrate everything the app does.
Use real contrast. Dark mark on a light field or light mark on a dark field. Mid-tone on mid-tone disappears the instant it shrinks. Squint at your icon scaled down to 48px — if the shape blurs into the background, you've got a contrast problem, not a detail problem.
Fill the canvas, respect the padding. Design full-bleed to the 512×512 (or 1024×1024) edge so there's no transparent gap, but keep the meaningful elements inside that 15-18% safe zone so nothing important sits where the corner mask bites.
Test it in context, not in isolation. An icon looks great alone on your design canvas. It looks different sitting in a row of twelve competitors in the store. The fastest way I've found to sanity-check this is to drop the icon onto a phone home screen mockup and a store-listing mockup and look at it the way a real user will. You can do that in the PlayMockUp studio — drop your icon and a screenshot into a real device frame and you instantly see how the whole listing reads together, icon and screens as one set.
Match the icon to the screenshots. Your icon, your screenshot backgrounds, and your feature graphic should feel like one product. Same palette, same energy. If your icon is calm pastels and your screenshots are aggressive neon, the listing feels disjointed. Pick a device frame and background in the frame library that echoes your icon's color so the whole page reads as one designed thing.
A few format reminders before you export: PNG only for both stores, no transparency, flatten everything, and keep the Play file under 1024 KB. Apple's full rules live in Apple's Human Interface Guidelines for app icons, which is genuinely worth ten minutes even if you ship Android-first.
What are the most common app icon mistakes?
Putting your app's name inside the icon. The store already prints your name right beside the icon. Repeating it inside just shrinks the actual mark and wastes your most valuable pixels. Drop the text, make the symbol bigger.
Designing for the big canvas only. Your icon will mostly be seen small. If you only ever look at it at full 512px, you'll pack in detail that turns to mush at thumbnail scale. Always preview at 48px before you commit.
Transparent backgrounds. Both stores want a flat, opaque icon. A transparent PNG either gets rejected (Play) or fills with an unpredictable background. Flatten it.
Pre-rounded corners or circle crops. With the 2026 Play rule auto-applying a 30% radius, a hand-rounded or circular icon now double-rounds or leaves gaps. Ship a square, let the store round it.
Chasing trends over recognition. Glassmorphism, heavy gradients, ultra-thin line art — they photograph well in a portfolio and vanish at 48px. Trends age; a bold, simple, high-contrast mark stays recognizable for years.
Letting the icon drift from the rest of the listing. A great icon paired with mismatched screenshots and a clashing feature graphic still reads as amateur. Treat the icon, screenshots, and feature graphic as one design system from the start. The easiest way to keep them aligned is to build all three in the same place with the same palette — frame your screenshots and preview your icon side by side in the PlayMockUp studio so nothing drifts out of sync as you iterate.
Frequently asked questions
What size should an app icon be for Google Play?
512×512 pixels, as a 32-bit PNG with no transparency and a file size under 1024 KB. Google generates every smaller placement from this single master asset, so you only upload one. Don't round the corners yourself — as of March 31, 2026, Play automatically applies a 30% corner radius.
What size is the App Store app icon?
1024×1024 pixels, as a PNG in the sRGB or P3 color space with no transparency. The design must be a perfect square because Apple applies its own squircle mask. You upload it once to App Store Connect and Apple resizes it automatically for every placement across iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, and macOS.
Should my app icon have text on it?
No. The store already displays your app's name right next to the icon, so text inside it is redundant and shrinks your actual mark. It also turns to mush at thumbnail size. Use one bold symbol or letter with high contrast instead, and check how it reads in a real listing using the [PlayMockUp studio](/create).
Do I need to round my app icon corners myself?
No, and you shouldn't. Both stores mask the shape for you — Apple uses a squircle and, since March 31, 2026, Google Play auto-applies a 30% corner radius. If you pre-round or pre-crop, you risk double-rounded edges or transparent gaps, so design a full-bleed square and let the platform handle the corners.
How do I know if my icon works at small sizes?
Scale it down to 48 pixels and squint. If the shape blurs into the background or the details disappear, it's too busy or too low-contrast. Keep one focal element, use strong contrast, and preview it on a real home-screen and store-listing mockup so you see it the way users will.
Can I put a badge like 'New' or 'Free' on my app icon?
No. Google Play explicitly prohibits badges, promotional text, and misleading graphics inside the icon, and Apple discourages it too. The icon's job is identity, not advertising. Promote sales and new features in your screenshots and listing copy instead, where they belong.
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