Icon Composer. What it is and how to build an icon with it

What Icon Composer is

Icon Composer arrived together with the Liquid Glass design. Apple called it an all-new app for icons in its press release of June 9, 2025 (Apple Newsroom). You draw the artwork in your own design tool, then in Icon Composer you arrange the layers, give them glass, highlights and shadows, and preview the icon across platforms.

Everything lives in one .icon file. From it the system renders the icon for iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple Watch at every size and appearance. For marketing, the app can export a flattened image of the icon (Icon Composer page). Which canvas to draw for each platform is covered on the app icon size page.

Where to get Icon Composer and how it's laid out

If you have Xcode, open Xcode › Open Developer Tool › Icon Composer. Without Xcode, download it from the Icon Composer page, and it needs macOS Tahoe 26.4 or later.

The window has three parts. The sidebar on the left holds layers and groups, the canvas in the middle shows the icon, and the inspectors sit on the right. Below the canvas you pick a platform (iOS, macOS, watchOS) and an appearance (Default, Dark, Mono), and above it the background, grid, preview size and the 26 and 27 buttons that compare the old and new rendering. When the file is already in your project, Xcode shows its preview with an Open with Icon Composer button.

Apple's numbers and modes

What	Value
Announced	June 9, 2025, WWDC25
Current version	Icon Composer 2.0, with Xcode 27 from September 14, 2026
File	.icon, one for all platforms
Layer groups	up to 4
Layer formats	SVG, PNG and other raster formats
Appearances	Default, Dark, Mono, and Mono yields clear and tinted in light and dark, 6 in total
Platforms	iOS, iPadOS, macOS, watchOS, while tvOS and visionOS keep the AppIcon catalog
Glass settings	Mode, Specular, Blur, Refraction, Translucency, Shadow
Standalone app	macOS Tahoe 26.4 or later

Per the Xcode documentation, the WWDC25 talk, the Xcode 27 release notes and the Icon Composer page, checked October 16, 2026.

Layers, groups and glass

On import each file becomes a layer and each folder becomes a group. You can have up to four groups, and they are what gives the icon its depth, since the system renders them bottom to top in sidebar order. Icon Composer adds glass to layers on its own, and fine-tuning happens on the group in the Liquid Glass section of the Style inspector.

In a layer's Color section you switch the fill to None, Solid or Gradient and set opacity, which helps with the dark and mono looks. Any setting can vary by platform or appearance through Vary for, so the Apple Watch icon can differ in geometry from the iPhone one while staying the same icon. One caveat from the documentation matters. On systems before version 27 refraction isn't visible, and highlights simply turn on when you pick Inside or Outside.

How to add an .icon file to your project, step by step

1. Save the file in Icon Composer with File › Save and give it the name the icon should have in the project, such as AppIcon.
2. Drag the .icon file from Finder into the Project navigator, into your app target's folder.
3. Select the app target and open the General tab, App Icons and Launch Screen section.
4. Type the file name without .icon into the App Icon field. A project can hold several such files, and the one named in this field becomes the icon.
5. If the project had an AppIcon catalog, note that the .icon file replaces it. For older iOS versions Xcode builds a similar image at build time.
6. Run the app in the simulator and check the icon on the Home Screen in light, dark and tinted looks.

What's new in Icon Composer 2.0

Icon Composer 2.0 arrived with Xcode 27 on September 14, 2026. Per the Xcode 27 release notes it supports a new, sharper rendering mode for the 2027 operating systems, with refraction, outside highlights and deeper shadows. You edit the new properties in the group inspector and switch between the old and new design generation in the toolbar above the canvas.

Existing .icon files open as they are and pick up the sharper material automatically. Apple suggests checking the icon in both generations before adding it to the project, so it works across all OS versions.

Common mistakes

• Backgrounds and shadows baked into the layers. Apple asks you to strip blur, shadows, opacity and background color from the exported art. Those belong in Icon Composer, or they fight the system glass.
• More than four groups. The documentation caps groups at four to keep the icon simple. Move extra layers into the groups you already have.
• A file name that doesn't match the App Icon field. Xcode only takes the icon from the file with that exact name, and other .icon files in the project go unused.
• An .icon file for Apple TV or Vision Pro. For tvOS and visionOS targets Apple still points to the AppIcon asset catalog.
• Checking only the new look. Refraction isn't visible before version 27, so an icon that relies on it looks flat on iOS 26.

Appto offers two or three design directions for your app and shows them as a live mockup inside a phone, more on the design page.