Why the icon has to be square — and padded
Android launcher icons are generated from one square source, and on modern phones that square is then masked into whatever shape the launcher uses: a circle on Pixel, a squircle on Samsung, a rounded square elsewhere. The mask keeps roughly the central 66–80% of the image, so anything near the edges is cut off. A logo that fills its square edge to edge loses its corners; a wide wordmark squeezed into a square ends up as a thin illegible strip.
The fix is padding: put the logo in the middle of a square with breathing room, on a solid background colour that matches the brand. That is what this tool does, and the circle overlay in the preview shows you what survives the strictest mask.
Choosing the background
- Sample from image reads the four corners of your logo and averages them — right for a logo that already sits on a flat colour, so the padding is invisible.
- Pick a colour for a logo on transparency. Use the brand's main colour; the builder's theme colour and splash screen will usually match it.
- Transparent only if you know the builder will add its own background. For a launcher icon, a transparent PNG becomes a black or white square on many launchers — usually not what you want.
Sizes
512×512 is what the builder asks for and what Google Play's listing requires. It is downscaled to the five launcher densities from there. 1024 is useful if you also want an iOS-style asset or a store feature image; 192 is the size a web manifest and a browser home-screen shortcut use. All three are the same drawing at different resolutions, so pick one — the builder makes the rest.