If I use the new beta Icon Composer to make a .icon file for a macOS app, will it work for any macOS versions before 26? If not, can one build with both the .icon and the older asset collection icon?

This app icon features multiple layers with the blend mode set to Screen. iOS fails to render these despite looking perfectly fine in Icon Composer. This is unacceptable. How can a designer build an icon if they can't rely on it being displayed like the preview on a device? Filed as FB20052048 with the .icon file attached.

Is there a way to access an Icon Composer .icon file in Swift or Objective-C? Any way to get this in an NSImage object that I can display in an image view? Thanks.

We have found that on iOS 26 beta some of our app icons built from an Xcode 16 asset catalog containing a single 1024x1024 .png file have a Liquid Glass effect applied to them while others have not. The documentation states that If you choose not to use Icon Composer, you can still use an AppIcon asset catalog in your project containing individual app icon images and let the system apply the Liquid Glass material. and If you prefer, you can take advantage of the system’s automatically generated treatment that is applied to all app icons. Is there any insight into how the system treats app icons that have not yet been updated with Icon Composer?

Hi everyone, I’ve run into a strange issue while building my app with Xcode 26 beta 6 (targeting iOS 26). When I include an app icon created using Icon Composer, the build time jumps to over 5 minutes. During this time, I noticed that a utility called AssetCatalogSimulatorAgent is consuming a significant amount of CPU. If I remove the Icon Composer-generated icon from my target, the build completes in about 40 seconds. This behavior is consistent across multiple builds. Has anyone else experienced this? Is there a known workaround or optimization for icons created with Icon Composer? I’d love to keep using the new icon format, but the build time is becoming a real bottleneck. Thanks in advance!

Just posted this feedback regarding macOS 26 "Tahoe" (FB19853155) - please support with additional submissions if you share my view. I will miss the beautiful and individual designed icons of the past! "macOS 26 is enforcing squicles for app icons, falling back to a grey background for 3rd party apps without a compliant AppIcon asset. As a result many original app icons are reduced in size and hard to distinguish because they share the same background color. Although I respect Apple's strive for an iOS-like UI on Macs, a smooth transition path would be more user- and developer-friendly ... e.g. with some info.plist property to opt-out icon migration, potentially ignored by a future macOS version. The current solution causes a bad usability, and makes the system look inconsistent as many - especially free - software will not be updated with new icon designs. Please reconsider this bad design decision!"

Hi, Is it possible to use the iOS26 Liquid Glass icon on iOS 26 (built with Icon Composer), and use the old icon on iOS18 devices? I imported the icon file into my Xcode project and it seems to use the new icon on iOS18 (and earlier) devices as well. Thanks.

I’m having a bit of trouble uploading my new icon to the App Store Connect. I created it entirely with Icon Composer, but it keeps throwing an error saying it’s an “Invalid large app icon.” The error message says that the large app icon in the asset catalog can’t be transparent or have an alpha channel. I only have one AppIcon in the asset catalog, and I’ve checked the “single size” option, which is set to 1024x1024 for any, dark, or tinted size. In the past, when I used the previous icon with the iOS 18 SDK, I didn’t have any issues uploading it. However, when I created the new icon with Icon Composer and compiled it with Xcode Beta, it broke. I’m a bit confused because the error message suggests that removing transparency is the solution, but the whole point of Icon Composer is to make the icon transparent for the new liquid glass design. I don’t want to remove the cool look that my new transparent icon has. Could you please help me out? I’d really appreciate it. Thanks a bunch!

As of right now Icon Composer does not support creating app icons for visionOS and tvOS. It appears that only system apps can provide glass icons for those platforms. How should developers handle this? In extreme cases, the flat icon on those platforms will look wildly different from their glass counterparts. From what I have seen visionOS and tvOS also do not apply any automatic treatment like on iOS where legacy icons get a glass effect. So, third party app icons are just going to look out of place for (hopefully just) a year on those platforms? What is the recommended approach here? You could obviously fake the effect, but I feel like that would be worse.

After updating from iOS 18 to iOS 26, our app icon appears to have automatically received the new 'Liquid Glass' effect. We confirmed that this change occurred without us releasing a new app update. My questions are: Is this a system behavior where iOS 26 automatically applies the new icon style to existing apps? If so, is it possible for a developer to control or customize this effect? I am also wondering if there are any methods other than using Icon Composer.

Hi, I'm updating my iPhone app (iPhone only) to be ready with iOS 26. I'm building my app using Xcode 26.0 beta 6 (17A5305f) and testing it on an iPad running iPadOS 26 (23A5326a). I found an issue with my new app icon updated using Icon Composer and I was able to find the issue. An iPhone only app running on iPadOS 26 doesn't use the provided app icon. It always displays the "standard" light icon. I just added iPad in Supported Destinations and the app icon now respect light/dark/translucent/tinted modes on the Home Screen. I submitted feedback FB19768667

Hi Guys, I noticed that with Icon Composer when you export the icon it does not export a square image, is there any way of doing it or that's how it is now? Checking the icon on the iPhone something doesn't seem right...

Is there a way to display a .icon file in SwiftUI? I want to show the app icon in the app itself but exporting and including the app icon as a PNG feels redundant. This would consume a lot of unnecessary storage especially when including a lot of alternative app icons. There has to be a better way Otherwise I would file a feedback for that Thank you

I've filed a FB already through standard channels (FB ID: FB19032008) but I'll post it here in case it may get some attention from others experiencing similar issues. On macOS 26 Beta 5 and Xcode 26 Beta 5 (and earlier revisions afaik) Icon Composer specifies a minimum window size that greatly exceeds the bounds of the 1280x800/832pt video modes available on 13in MacBooks, and which also is too large for the default 1440x900 video mode on non-notched 13in MacBook Air/Pro models as this causes a default-size 64pt dock to occlude the window. I've attached screenshots depicting this behaviour in the two above described cases. Best solution seems like reducing min window size to something that will fit reasonably in a 1280x800pt viewport including the dock and menu bar (e.g. 1000x600 or something).

I have been battling the new Icon Composer app for 2 days trying to build an app icon. However, I cannot get it to import any files. I have used the Apple provided App Icon Template. I have exported my layers to .svg and when I open the finder, everything is disabled. I can't find help for this anywhere. I am on Sequoia on my Mac and not sure how to design this app icon without access to the composer.

Hi everyone 👋 I’m a new iOS developer working on my first app and I’ve run into a frustrating visual bug involving my app icon during the launch/close transition. Issue: When I use Icon Composer (the new tool introduced for iOS 26) to generate my app icon, I consistently see a thin white border or “fringe” around the icon only during the transition animation (when the app opens or closes). It disappears once the animation ends. What I tested and confirmed: • I exported the exact same design directly from Adobe Illustrator as a 1024×1024 PNG, fully opaque, RGB color mode, background color filling the entire canvas (no transparency, no borders, no rounded corners). • When I place that exported PNG directly into the AppIcon asset catalog in Xcode, the icon renders perfectly — no white fringe appears, just a slightly darker shade of blue during transitions (expected and acceptable). • But when I generate the icon using Icon Composer, the white edge always appears, even if I disable effects, use full coverage layers, or only keep a flat color layer. Notes: • Tested on iOS 26 (latest beta) using Xcode 16. • The issue seems specific to Icon Composer’s export format or metadata — maybe it’s not stripping alpha correctly or something related to the squircle mask? • I followed all recommended specs: 1024×1024 px, PNG, sRGB, no transparency, exported from Illustrator at 72ppi with solid background. Even tested without the logo, just the icon made with icon composer Is anyone else experiencing this issue with Icon Composer exports? Is there an official recommendation to avoid this during transitions or should I simply avoid Icon Composer for production icons for now and stick with Illustrator / Figma exports? Thanks so much Here’s a visual example:

When creating an icon using icon composer, I cant upload a build to testflight/App Store connect. Running on device from Xcode works fine, but as soon as I archive and upload to App Store Connect, I get an error saying the icon contains an alpha channel

How to add an app icon created in Icon Composer to an App Playground project?

I am running into an issue where when layers are grouped, the icon is not shown as it does within the preview in the Icon Composer app Is this a bug or is it some setting within the group/app?

so the new icon composer tool allows you to make and preview your logo with liquid glass, upon uploading it to your project earlier versions of ios (e.x. ios 18) use it too but since earlier versions dont have liquid glass the logo looks very out of place. will uploading an AppIcon in Assets make it default for earlier ios versions that dont support liquid glass while keeping the logo from icon composer in ios 26?