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GIF to ICO converter

Convert GIF images to ICO format

No watermarkFree & unlimited
All processing happens in your browser. No data is sent to any server.

Small GIFs and favicons have overlapped since the late nineties, so this is a well-worn path. What happens here is narrower than the history suggests: the browser renders the GIF, the first frame is scaled into a 32 by 32 square, and that square becomes a single-entry Windows icon with a full alpha byte per pixel. Animation is dropped, because ICO has no timeline. Transparency, unusually for a GIF conversion, survives properly, since the icon payload is 32-bit and the transparent palette index becomes real alpha.

Key facts about GIF to ICO converter

Key facts about GIF to ICO converter
Fixed output size32 by 32 pixels, always. The resize presets are hidden for this target, and an on-page notice states the same before you convert.
Byte count4,158 bytes for every icon: a 6-byte ICONDIR, a 16-byte entry, a 40-byte info header and 4,096 bytes of raw BGRA.
Transparency keptThe strong point of this pair. The payload is 32 bits per pixel with a real alpha byte, so a transparent GIF gives a genuinely clear icon background.
Edge qualityLimited by the source. GIF transparency is on or off with no partial values, so the icon edge is as hard as the GIF edge was.
AnimationDiscarded. ICO holds still images only, and the conversion captures the single frame the browser had rendered.
ColourThe GIF palette is expanded to full RGB before scaling, so there is no palette in the icon and no 256-colour restriction in the output.
Aspect ratioNot maintained. A wide GIF banner is squeezed into the square rather than cropped, so trim to a square source first.
Opens the resultWindows Explorer and the taskbar, shortcut property dialogs, Visual Studio resource editors, GIMP, and every browser as a site favicon.

What happens to your file

No server sees your GIF. The file is turned into an object URL, decoded by the browser's own GIF reader, and drawn into a working canvas in this tab. A second 32 by 32 canvas receives the scaled copy, and the page reads it back with getImageData. The icon is then built in memory, directory fields written little-endian through a DataView followed by BGRA rows bottom-up. Every step is local JavaScript.

About this tool

  1. 1

    Pick a square-ish GIF

    Crop first if the GIF is wide, since the output square will otherwise distort the picture.

  2. 2

    Drop it in

    Drag the .gif onto the target zone or browse for it. Up to twenty at a time if you are making several icons.

  3. 3

    Convert

    Press Convert. There is no quality setting and no size choice, only the fixed 32x32 notice.

  4. 4

    Install the icon

    Save the .ico and place it at your site root as favicon.ico, or point a Windows shortcut or resource at it.

Specs & compatibility
Input and outputTakes .gif only (image/gif) and returns .ico with the image/x-icon type; any other extension is refused before decoding.
Conversion pathGIF to ICO runs in three steps: an <img> element decodes the GIF and only its first frame reaches the canvas; the pixels land on a 2D canvas in this tab; then the canvas is redrawn at 32x32 and an icon writer in the page emits the directory and the DIB.
Browser supportThe GIF side decodes in every browser ever shipped, while writing the ICO needs nothing from the browser, the icon being assembled in the page.
Controls for this pairNo quality slider and no resize presets: GIF to ICO is pinned to 32x32 pixels, which the page says above the convert button.
Batch, caps and namingTwenty GIF files per run at 500 MB each; one result downloads as a single ICO, several as converted-ico-files.zip, zipped by JSZip 3.10 in page memory.
Device ceilingThe canvas caps it: past roughly 16,384 px a side Chromium refuses the bitmap and iPhone Safari gives up sooner, so an oversized GIF fails before any ICO bytes exist.
  • A 32-pixel square shows one recognisable shape, so pick the frame with the boldest silhouette rather than the prettiest.
  • GIF transparency has hard edges by nature, which suits icon work: the result looks clean rather than feathered.
  • Browsers will not animate a favicon from an .ico file, so the GIF motion will not appear in the tab.
  • A GIF already sized 32 by 32 or 64 by 64 scales cleanly and reproduces almost exactly.
  • 32-bit BGRA icon payload with alpha
  • Single fixed 32x32 directory entry
  • First-frame capture from animated GIFs
  • Twenty icons per run, zipped locally
  • Making a favicon.ico out of a small animated logo a site already uses elsewhere.
  • Giving a Windows shortcut a recognisable custom icon from an existing GIF asset.
  • Producing an icon resource for an internal tool whose build expects an .ico path.
No. The ICO container stores still images with no frame timing at all, and browsers do not animate favicons from icon files. The conversion captures the first frame and writes that. Some sites fake animated favicons by swapping the link tag on a timer, but that is a page technique, not a property of the file.
Yes, better than most GIF conversions. The icon payload is 32 bits per pixel with a dedicated alpha byte, so wherever the GIF declared its transparent index the icon is genuinely clear. That is the main reason to choose ICO over BMP here, since a 24-bit bitmap would flatten the same pixels to black.
Not from this page. The writer emits exactly one entry at 32 by 32, the classic Windows shell size. A multi-resolution icon requires packing several images and their directory entries, which an icon editor such as GIMP can do. Windows scales the 32-pixel image for other views.
It gets squashed. The scaling step draws the whole frame into a 32 by 32 square without preserving proportions, so a 600 by 100 banner comes out compressed vertically into something unrecognisable. Crop to a square region containing the mark you want first.
Nothing about the output varies. The dimensions are fixed at 32 by 32, the payload is stored raw rather than compressed, and the header sizes are constant, giving 4,096 pixel bytes plus 62 bytes of structure. A detailed photo and a blank square produce identical file sizes.

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