how to change desktop windows application icon for flutter?

Question

I used the desktop flutter and I searched for a way to do that I couldn't find any articles about that, so I want to know how to change the launcher app icon for Windows desktop and also for Mac and Linux.

[UPDATE] Now flutter_launcher_icons package supports all platforms

To set it up:

1. Create a file and may name it as flutter_launcher_icons.yaml
2. Add configuration to flutter_launcher_icons.yaml
3. Specify image paths and platforms

dev_dependencies:
 flutter_launcher_icons: "^0.13.1"
flutter_launcher_icons:
 android: "launcher_icon"
 ios: true
 image_path: "assets/icon/icon.png"
 min_sdk_android: 21 # android min sdk min:16, default 21
 web:
 generate: true
 image_path: "path/to/image.png"
 background_color: "#hexcode"
 theme_color: "#hexcode"
 windows:
 generate: true
 image_path: "path/to/image.png"
 icon_size: 48 # min:48, max:256, default: 48
 macos:
 generate: true
 image_path: "path/to/image.png"

4. Run pub get and the package

flutter pub get
flutter pub run flutter_launcher_icons -f flutter_launcher_icons.yaml

Answer 1

To change the icon you just need to replace the icon file in your project:

• Windows: windows/runner/resources/app_icon.ico
• macOS: macos/Runner/Assets.xcassets/AppIcon.appiconset

Linux doesn't have an icon set up in the template yet; you can follow this issue for updates.

• Zuher Abud Said: i made an ico file with my logo and replaced it with the ico file at resources/app_icon.ico but it did not change the icon
• kakyo: flutter build windows doesn't pick up windows/runner/resources/app_icon.ico for the release version. What am I missing?
• Mahesh Jamdade: Is there any way we could change the app icon in the runtime?
• il_boga: To anyone stumbling upon this issue: at first, it seems that replacing app_icon.ico won't do anything. I tried several other methods, including specifying another file in Runner.rc as mentioned below, but nothing seemed to work. In the end, I invalidated caches for Android Studio, rebooted my PC, run a flutter clean then rebuilt my app. In the end, the icon got updated by replacing app_icon.ico.
• West: can confirm this works. I tried initially without reboot and didnt work then repeated with reboot and it got replaced
• smorgan: @il_boga You should file a bug; if it requires a clean that's something that should be fixed.

Answer 2

To change the icon in windows you have to keep the icon file in this location:

windows/runner/resources/

Then go into windows/runner/resources/Runner.rc file and search for the word app_icon. You will reach here:

IDI_APP_ICON ICON "resources\\app_icon.ico"

Replace the app_icon with your icon file name. Then run the command

flutter build windows
flutter run --release -d windows

Answer 3

For Linux

Best And Simple way is to use gtk_window_set_icon_from_file function

Edit Your my_application.cc file which is inside Linux folder linux/my_application.cc

• before line gtk_widget_show(GTK_WIDGET(window));
• add new line gtk_window_set_icon_from_file(GTK_WINDOW(window),"assets/icon.ico",NULL);
• Icon recommends 48x48 pixel

• Haidar: didn't work for me
• Kiyan Ray: please show me your code
• abulka: I added the line gtk_window_set_icon_from_file(GTK_WINDOW(window),"images-icons/out/icons/win/icon.ico",NULL); and there is no change in the linux executable appearance either. Does the icon need to be in assets/ and registered as an asset using pubspec.yaml perhaps?
• abulka: Actually before I made the above code change, the default app icon was still the same generic grey gear symbol that I'm getting now - not even the classic flutter icon. So if the flutter team can't change the icon then what hope do we have!
• abulka: Turns out that the gtk call above needs the icon file to be present at runtime, e.g. in the directory (or subdir) of the deployed executable. You will see a warning in the terminal when running if the icon file you specify cannot be found. So in the end I got the icon loading OK. However the icon of the deployed executable is still generic, and the icon as displayed in the Ubuntu dock at runtime remains generic - so there is no visible useful effect of this line of code, as far as I can see.

Answer 4

I hava the best way, using Flutter Launcher Icons for your Windows, Android etc.

1. Edit your pubspec.yaml file:

dev_dependencies: flutter_launcher_icons: "^0.10.0"

flutter_icons:
 android: "launcher_icon"
 ios: true
 image_path: "assets/icon/icon.png"
 min_sdk_android: 21 # android min sdk min:16, default 21
 web:
 generate: true
 image_path: "path/to/image.png"
 background_color: "#hexcode"
 theme_color: "#hexcode"
 windows:
 generate: true
 image_path: "path/to/image.png"
 icon_size: 48 # min:48, max:256, default: 48

2. Go to Terminal, run:

flutter pub get
flutter pub run flutter_launcher_icons:main

Note: Name of your icon is lowercase, don't use capital.

Answer 5

After trying all of these steps for weeks, what really worked for me was to change the app description on those fields on Runner.rc:

• FileDescription
• InternalName
• OriginalFilename
• ProductName

I also changed the BINARY_NAME description field on CMakeLists.txt.

After changing the description for some reason, the icon is updated. I didn't tried, but you can try to switch your app name back to the previous one after you successfully update the launcher app icon.

Answer 6

Here is my setup from flutter doctor

Doctor summary (to see all details, run flutter doctor -v):
[✓] Flutter (Channel stable, 2.2.1, on Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.19043.1110], locale en-CA)
[✓] Android toolchain - develop for Android devices (Android SDK version 30.0.3)
[✓] Chrome - develop for the web
[✓] Visual Studio - develop for Windows (Visual Studio Community 2019 16.10.3)
[✓] Android Studio (version 4.1.0)
[✓] Android Studio
[✓] Connected device (3 available)
• No issues found!

Initially it didn't work by just replacing the icon and run

flutter build windows

and neither did

flutter clean
flutter build windows

I found that in the running mode the icon updates on the GUI, but unfortunately not in the EXE itself.

flutter run --release -d windows

Answer 7

This is what i did and worked for me 100%

dev_dependencies:
 flutter_launcher_icons: "^0.13.1"
flutter_launcher_icons:
 android: "launcher_icon"
 ios: true
 image_path: "assets/icon/icon.png"
 min_sdk_android: 21 # android min sdk min:16, default 21
 web:
 generate: true
 image_path: "path/to/image.png"
 background_color: "#hexcode"
 theme_color: "#hexcode"
 windows:
 generate: true
 image_path: "path/to/image.png"
 icon_size: 48 # min:48, max:256, default: 48
 macos:
 generate: true
 image_path: "path/to/image.png"
Run pub get and the package

at the end run these in terminal

flutter pub get
flutter pub run flutter_launcher_icons -f flutter_launcher_icons.yaml