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ICO to SVG converter

Convert ICO to SVG in your browser. No upload and no account: the file never leaves your device, so the only size limit is your device’s memory.

I want SVG
90%
Icon sizes
How to make the SVG

Tracing suits logos, icons and flat artwork and scales cleanly. Photos are better kept as pixels inside the SVG.

16
50%
Dither Scatters black dots to suggest gray, instead of a hard cut-off.
Advanced 5
Keep the animation For animated GIF, WebP and APNG sources. Turn off to save just the first frame.
Rotate
Mirror horizontally
Mirror vertically

For an exact width and height, use the Resize Image tool instead.

Bytes of your files sent anywhere: 0 B

Related conversions

Need it the other way round? Convert SVG to ICO

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Convert other formats to SVG

Read more about the ICO format and the SVG format, or see every image tool and all image conversions.

Should you convert ICO to SVG?

Only if something specifically needs an SVG. For logos, icons and flat artwork, tracing the ICO into shapes gives a file that stays sharp at any size. For photographs, SVG gains nothing: the result either looks like a poster or simply wraps the same pixels.

ICO is a small container that holds the same icon at several sizes; SVG is a vector format made of shapes instead of pixels. Use SVG for logos, icons and illustrations on websites, where the same file has to look sharp on every screen.

ICO and SVG compared
Property ICO SVG
Compression Lossless Vector (shapes, not pixels)
Transparency Yes Yes
Animation No Yes
Support Opens almost everywhere Opens almost everywhere
Best for Website favicons and Windows shortcuts Logos, icons and illustrations that must stay sharp at any size
Introduced 1985 2001

How to convert ICO to SVG

  1. 01

    Add your ICO

    Drop your ICO image onto the box, or click to choose it. It is read from your disk and stays there.

  2. 02

    Check the settings

    The output is already set to SVG. Change the quality if you want to; the defaults suit most files.

  3. 03

    Save the SVG

    Press convert and save the SVG. Several files come back together as a ZIP.

What changes when ICO becomes SVG

Transparency is kept

ICO and SVG both support transparency, so transparent backgrounds and soft edges come through unchanged.

Tracing or keeping the pixels

“Trace into shapes” reduces the picture to a set number of colors and outlines each area as a vector path, ideal for logos and icons. “Keep the exact pixels” wraps the ICO image inside the SVG, which is larger than the original but looks identical.

Expect a much smaller file

ICO: A full favicon with every size is usually under 100 KB. SVG: A simple logo is often only a few KB. Shrinking the file is often the main reason to make this conversion.

This page is put together from our notes on each format, choosing only what is true of ICO and SVG, so every pairing states the same facts the same way. How these pages are made.

Why it doesn’t upload

Changing a picture’s format is work your browser already knows how to do. Sending your photos to a server first only adds waiting and risk, so nothing is sent.

How to check for yourself

Worth knowing

  • About the ICO. Renaming a PNG to favicon.ico works in some browsers and silently fails in others. A real ICO holds several sizes so each place picks the right one.
  • About the SVG. Converting a photograph to SVG does not turn it into vectors. Either the pixels get wrapped inside an SVG, which is bigger and no sharper, or a tracer turns it into flat blobs of color.
  • DDS, PSD, EXR, XWD and JPEG 2000 are read by the FFmpeg engine, a one-time 31 MB download.

Questions

Will converting ICO to SVG lose quality?

No. ICO and SVG are both lossless, so every pixel is kept.

Will the SVG be smaller than the ICO?

Expect a much smaller file. ICO: A full favicon with every size is usually under 100 KB. SVG: A simple logo is often only a few KB. Shrinking the file is often the main reason to make this conversion.

Read more about this

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