A new version of the Configuring your app to use alternate app icons sample code is available for download. The sample uses Icon Composer files and supports iOS 18 or later.

I am trying to validate my update for my app to be ready for iOS 26 with the new Icon Composer .icon file. Everywhere I read says that the old AppIcon in the assets folder wouldnt be used and to just drop the .icon file in the project navigator and link it properly. I do that and its still asking for a .png file; I add the 1024x1024 .png file and its still not working. I am very lost and dont know where to go from here I have both the .icon and .png app icons in there. My app deployment target is at iOS 26, Xcode Project format 16.3 (I dont see 26 so assuming 16.3 is the highest). I feel I have done all the things, and advice? Thanks in advance!

This started with Xcode 26 beta 7, however it has continued to occur with the release candidate. Whenever I try to compile our asset catalog + icon composer icon for our AppKit/SwiftUI-based macOS app, actool fails with the following exception: *** Terminating app due to uncaught exception 'IBPlatformToolFailureException', reason: 'The tool closed the connection (AssetCatalogAgent-AssetRuntime) Last command: _ON_QUEUE_sendMessage:toChannelReturningError:during: Backtrace of last command: 0 -[IBAbstractPlatformToolProxy _ON_QUEUE_sendMessage:toChannelReturningError:during:] (in IDEInterfaceBuilderKit) 1 __74-[IBAbstractPlatformToolProxy sendMessage:toChannelReturningError:during:]_block_invoke (in IDEInterfaceBuilderKit) 2 _dispatch_client_callout (in libdispatch.dylib) 3 _dispatch_lane_barrier_sync_invoke_and_complete (in libdispatch.dylib) 4 DVTDispatchSync (in DVTFoundation) 5 -[IBAbstractPlatformToolProxy sendMessage:toChannelReturningError:during:] (in IDEInterfaceBuilderKit) 6 -[AssetCatalogRemoteAgentProxy compileItemsWithCatalogRelativeIdentifierPaths:tagSolutionSpace:andStickerPacksWithCatalogRelativeIdentifierPaths:options:] (in IDEInterfaceBuilderCocoaTouchIntegration) 7 -[IBICLARToolCARCompiler compileCARItems:tagSolutionSpace:options:queue:completionHandler:] (in AssetCatalogCocoaTouchKit) 8 -[IBICAbstractPlatformAdapter compileCARItems:tagSolutionSpace:options:queue:completionHandler:] (in AssetCatalogFoundation) 9 __84-[IBICAbstractPlatformAdapter compileSelectedItems:options:queue:completionHandler:]_block_invoke (in AssetCatalogFoundation) 10 __93-[IBICAbstractPlatformAdapter compileStandaloneCatalogItems:options:queue:completionHandler:]_block_invoke (in AssetCatalogFoundation) 11 __DVT_CALLING_CLIENT_BLOCK__ (in DVTFoundation) 12 __DVTDispatchAsync_block_invoke (in DVTFoundation) 13 _dispatch_call_block_and_release (in libdispatch.dylib) 14 _dispatch_client_callout (in libdispatch.dylib) 15 _dispatch_main_queue_drain.cold.5 (in libdispatch.dylib) 16 _dispatch_main_queue_drain (in libdispatch.dylib) 17 _dispatch_main_queue_callback_4CF (in libdispatch.dylib) 18 __CFRUNLOOP_IS_SERVICING_THE_MAIN_DISPATCH_QUEUE__ (in CoreFoundation) 19 __CFRunLoopRun (in CoreFoundation) 20 CFRunLoopRunSpecific (in CoreFoundation) 21 -[NSRunLoop(NSRunLoop) runMode:beforeDate:] (in Foundation) 22 -[NSRunLoop(DVTNSRunLoopAdditions) dvt_spinRunLoopInMode:whileQueue:executesAsynchronously:] (in DVTFoundation) 23 -[NSRunLoop(DVTNSRunLoopAdditions) dvt_spinRunLoopInMode:whileBlockExecutesConcurrently:] (in DVTFoundation) 24 -[NSRunLoop(DVTNSRunLoopAdditions) dvt_spinRunLoopInMode:waitingForSemaphore:] (in DVTFoundation) 25 -[IBCLIImageCatalogToolPersona compileCatalogCollection:withPlatformAdapter:arguments:outputDictionary:] (in ibtoold) 26 -[IBCLIImageCatalogToolPersona invokeArguments:outputDictionary:] (in ibtoold) 27 -[IBCLIImageCatalogToolPersona runSingleInvocation:outputtingToFileHandle:andVerifyingEnvironment:] (in ibtoold) 28 IBCLIServerRunSingleInvocation (in ibtoold) 29 __IBCLIServerRunSingleInvocationWithIODirectedAtPipesAndUnlinkOnSuccess_block_invoke_2 (in ibtoold) 30 __IBCLIServerRunSingleInvocationWithIODirectedAtPipesAndUnlinkOnSuccess_block_invoke (in ibtoold) 31 -[IBCLIErrorForwarder forwardErrorOutputToDescriptor:whileInvokingBlock:] (in ibtoold) 32 IBCLIServerRunSingleInvocationWithIODirectedAtPipesAndUnlinkOnSuccess (in ibtoold) 33 main (in ibtoold) 34 start (in dyld) I can't seem to get it to compile consistently — it works fine locally. I would ❤️ a workaround, otherwise I'm not sure that we'll be able to ship an update to our app for macOS 26. FB20183399

App Icon created with Icon Composer is empty for visionOS app We are developing a universal app, and the app’s icon was created using Icon Composer. Xcode 26, RC visionOS 26 and visionOS 2.5 App Icons on macOS, iOS, and iPadOS are correct We have archived the app for macOS and iOS and successfully uploaded it to the App Store. This strongly suggests that the App Icon configuration in our project settings is correct for these platforms. App Icon issue on visionOS However, the visionOS app icon is not working as expected: When testing on the Vision Pro simulator (versions 2.x and 26.0), the app icon appears empty. When archiving and submitting to the App Store, the process fails with the following error: The app’s Info.plist file is missing the CFBundleIcons.CFBundlePrimaryIcon key for the visionOS App Icon. This suggests that the project’s App Icon settings may not be correctly applied for visionOS builds. Request for assistance We are preparing to release our app, one of the first to support Liquid Glass, and would greatly appreciate guidance on how to resolve this issue with the visionOS app icon. FB20184218

Hi, I'm experiencing a super weird and unexpected issue using Icon Composer (Version 1.0 (40)) and Xcode 26 beta 7. I have an icon that includes some minimal text in the icon, as part of the branding of the app. The text is an SVG layer in Icon Composer. Icon Composer has no idea this is text, just a regular SVG layer. When I import the resulting .icon file into Xcode, it appears correct in the Xcode preview. However, when building the app and installing it on the iOS 26 simulator, the font of the text in the icon changes (to the system default font?). It is also cropped, cut off, and off-center. I replicated this with a simple standalone icon and clean project. Is anyone else seeing this?

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.