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.
Icon Composer
RSS for tagIcon Composer lets you create multi-layered icons out of Liquid Glass from a single design file.
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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?
I'm trying to update the icon of my app for watchOS 26, and I'm having troubles providing both a layered Liquid Glass icon for watchOS 26 users and a pre-rendered bitmap icon (in various sizes) for watchOS 11 and older users. Whatever I do; I either get a blurry, scaled-down watchOS 26 icon on watchOS 11; or watchOS 11's bitmap icons on watchOS 26.
While I could get the wanted result on macOS 26 and iOS 26, I simply can't get an equivalent result with watchOS 26.
Several app developers are struggling with the inability to provide a separate app icons that looks nice on older macOS versions while at the same time provide Icon Composer icons that look great on macOS Tahoe 26. An ability to provide separate icons is super important to those who have app icons that follow the curvature of the default icon borders (as the corner rounding radius is different for Sequia and Tahoe). Take a look at this for example:
https://github.com/ghostty-org/ghostty/issues/7564#issuecomment-3042061547
Question: Is there a definitive/recommended way to address this issue? How can a developer add a glass icon variant that looks good on Tahoe and provide a bitmap icon for older macOS versions?
Some background info:
Prior to Xcode 26 beta 4, one could add an App Icon to Assets to be used as app icon for legacy macOS versions (Sequia and older) and use a new Icon Composer icon (placed in the project root) for macOS Tahoe 26. Enabling "Include all app icon assets" under target settings ensured that older macOS versions would use the old app icons while Tahoe the new Icon Composer glass one.
Since Xcode beta 4 this technique no longer works. Xcode instead insists on populating Assets.car with Icon Composer generated variants, disregarding the App Icon provided in Assets. Although the App Icon in Assets makes its way to a .incs file in the app bundle's Contents/Resources folder, but that is not used by macOS anymore and is there for some compatibility purposes. The Assets.car file (which matters) only contains the variants generated by Icon Composer and does not contain the png icons provided in the Assets.
Hello,
I used icon composer to create an icon for my Mac OS app and it seemed to have worked. I see the app icon everywhere except for window expose or stage manager.
Any help or guidance would be greatly appreciated!
On iOS 26 beta 3, my app and some other apps got greyed out app icon.
It only happens in Default (Light) appearance.
Apple automatically converts third-party app icons to support Liquid Glass, but is there any specific requirement with third-party icons to avoid above greyed out app icon issue?
Hello,
I added a new iOS 26 app icon created with Icon Composer (named AppIcon) to my app, while keeping the previous version's icon (in Asset Catalog format, also named AppIcon).
However, I found that once the bundle contains the Icon Composer icon file, the app cannot be submitted to App Store Connect.
I received the following App Store Connect errors:
ITMS-90022: Missing required icon file - The bundle does not contain an app icon for iPhone / iPod Touch of exactly '120x120' pixels, in .png format for iOS versions >= 10.0. To support older versions of iOS, the icon may be required in the bundle outside of an asset catalog. Make sure the Info.plist file includes appropriate entries referencing the file. See https://developer.apple.com/documentation/bundleresources/information_property_list/user_interface.
ITMS-90023: Missing required icon file - The bundle does not contain an app icon for iPad of exactly '152x152' pixels, in .png format for iOS versions >= 10.0. To support older operating systems, the icon may be required in the bundle outside of an asset catalog. Make sure the Info.plist file includes appropriate entries referencing the file. See https://developer.apple.com/documentation/bundleresources/information_property_list/user_interface.
ITMS-91111: Missing app icon - Include a large app icon as a 1024 by 1024 pixel PNG for the 'Any Appearance' image well in the asset catalog of apps built for iOS or iPadOS. Without this icon, apps can't be submitted for review. For details, visit: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/xcode/configuring-your-app-icon.
Environment: Xcode 26 beta 3
FB: FB18987592