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TIFF to ICO converter

Convert TIFF images to ICO format

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

This is a heavy-to-tiny conversion. Print and scanner TIFFs routinely run to tens of megabytes, and an icon is 32 pixels across, so almost everything in the source is discarded by design. The page parses the baseline TIFF, paints it into a canvas, then scales that whole canvas into a 32 by 32 square and writes a single-image ICO with 32-bit BGRA pixels. The scaling ignores the original proportions, so a letter-format scan arrives visibly compressed unless you crop it square first.

Key facts about TIFF to ICO converter

Key facts about TIFF to ICO converter
Icon dimensionsFixed at 32x32. No 16, 48, 128 or 256 pixel variants are added to the directory.
File sizeAlways 4,158 bytes: a 6-byte header, one 16-byte directory entry, a 40-byte info header and 4,096 pixel bytes.
Detail lossA 4000x3000 scan is 11.5 million pixels reduced to 1,024, so roughly one output pixel per 11,000 input pixels.
Aspect ratioThe canvas is scaled into a square without letterboxing, so an A4 scan comes out squeezed horizontally.
Transparency32 bits per pixel with a real alpha byte, but only four-sample TIFFs have alpha to contribute; most scans are opaque.
Pixel orderBGRA, rows bottom-up, matching the BITMAPINFOHEADER convention with a doubled height field as ICO requires.
Source requirementUncompressed 8-bit baseline TIFF. LZW, PackBits or Deflate scans stop with an explicit error.
PagesOnly the first image directory is read, so page one of a multi-page document becomes the icon.
MetadataEverything tagged in the TIFF is dropped. ICO stores no EXIF, no profile and no resolution.
CompressionNone on either side of the pair: the TIFF must be raw and the icon payload is raw BGRA too.
Opens natively inWindows Explorer and shortcut properties, Visual Studio resource editor, and browsers requesting /favicon.ico.

What happens to your file

Your scan stays on the machine you are using. The file becomes an ArrayBuffer, the TIFF parser inside this page walks its tags and strips, and the pixels are drawn into a canvas element in this tab. A second, smaller canvas performs the reduction to 32x32, and the icon structure is written into a DataView by JavaScript running right here. Nothing is uploaded, nothing is queued, and no copy survives the tab being closed or the tool being reset.

About this tool

  1. 1

    Load the TIFF

    Use the picker or drop the scan straight onto the panel. A whole folder of files can go in at once.

  2. 2

    Crop to a square beforehand

    Document scans are rarely 1:1. Trim to the logo or mark you want, otherwise the icon comes out stretched.

  3. 3

    Convert

    The scan is decoded, scaled into a 32x32 canvas and written as a single-entry ICO with a full alpha channel.

  4. 4

    Inspect at real size

    View the icon at 100 percent, not zoomed. Detail that reads clearly in the scan usually does not survive.

  5. 5

    Download

    Save the .ico, or take several results together as one locally built ZIP.

Specs & compatibility
Input and outputTakes .tiff and .tif only (image/tiff) and returns .ico with the image/x-icon type; any other extension is refused before decoding.
Conversion pathTIFF to ICO runs in three steps: the page's own baseline parser reads the IFD and rebuilds the pixels, because no browser decodes TIFF; 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 TIFF side needs no browser support at all, only a baseline uncompressed source, because LZW, Deflate and JPEG-in-TIFF files stop with an error, 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: TIFF to ICO is pinned to 32x32 pixels, which the page says above the convert button.
Batch, caps and namingTwenty TIFF 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 TIFF fails before any ICO bytes exist.
  • Crop first, then convert. Isolating a single mark from a scanned letterhead gives a far more legible icon than shrinking the whole page.
  • Scanned artwork often carries paper texture and dust. Clean and increase contrast before converting, since noise dominates once only 1,024 pixels remain.
  • Most TIFF scans have no alpha channel, so expect an opaque square. Add transparency in an editor first if you need a shaped icon.
  • Because the icon is always 4,158 bytes, there is no trade-off to tune here. Time spent preparing the source is the only thing that improves the result.
  • Keep the TIFF: if you later need a larger icon or a PNG favicon, converting again from the scan beats enlarging a 32 px bitmap.
  • Turn a scanned company mark, stamp or seal held only as an archival TIFF into the favicon.ico a site needs at its root.
  • Build a Windows shortcut icon for an internal tool where the brand asset was supplied by a print department as TIFF.
  • Produce a small icon for legacy desktop software from a high-resolution scan, without installing a dedicated icon editor.
Because the reduction is extreme. A typical 300 DPI A4 scan holds several million pixels and the icon holds 1,024, so fine strokes, small text and paper texture all collapse into a handful of averaged dots. Crop tightly to one simple shape before converting, and avoid anything that depends on detail smaller than a few percent of the frame.
It will be, unless the source was already square. The converter draws the full canvas into a 32 by 32 box, which compresses whichever axis is longer. An A4 portrait scan is squeezed horizontally by about a third. Crop the TIFF to a 1:1 frame in any editor and the proportions come out correct.
Only if the TIFF itself carries an alpha channel, which means four samples per pixel. The writer always emits 32-bit BGRA, so it has somewhere to put alpha, but most scanner and camera TIFFs store three samples and therefore produce a solid square. Add transparency in an image editor before converting if you need a shaped icon.
The bundled reader handles the uncompressed baseline layout with eight bits per sample, and it checks the Compression tag before doing anything else. Scanner software commonly writes LZW by default, which is rejected rather than misread. Open the file in an editor and save it again with compression set to None.
Not here. The directory is written with a single entry, which browsers and Windows Explorer both accept. Multi-resolution ICOs that hold 16, 48 and 256 pixel images need a dedicated icon editor that accepts several inputs, or a command-line tool that merges separate files into one directory.
No. The reader follows the file header to the first image directory and does not walk the chain, so page one is the only page converted, and you get one icon per file you drop in. To use a later page, split the document first with a desktop tool and convert the page you want on its own.

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