What is the size of the icons in the system tray?

Question

I want to change the notification icon of my application but don't know what is the size so as to make it properly displayed. Currently it is automatically resized and break my pixels! Please help!

score 13 · Answer 1 · answered Jan 06 '11 at 06:17

13

In fact the size of the icon will vary according to the system DPI.

WPF exposes the recommended pixel width and height of small icons with SystemParameters.SmallIconWidth and SystemParameters.SmallIconHeight. (WinForms exposes the equivalent SystemInformation.SmallIconSize - both just wrap around GetSystemMetrics and SM_CXSMICON/SM_CYSMICON.)

Microsoft recommends including 16x16 and 32x32 pixel icons.

answered Jan 06 '11 at 06:17

Quppa

1,841
20
18

2

Good info. I made a hand-drawn 16x16 icon, with "sharp" edges (no aliasing) and it doesn't really look right in my system tray. It's just barely shrinking it, probably by 2 to 4 pixels. Not sure there's any solving this, except to add some aliasing. – Abacus Jun 27 '14 at 20:58
After changing dpi I still get the same (16). [My question](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/68352927/systemparameters-smalliconwidth-returns-16-on-any-dpi-so-how-can-i-check-for-ac). – ispiro Jul 12 '21 at 19:31

score 12 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 20 '10 at 13:35

12

It's 16x16. If you create a .ico file that supports 16, 32, 48 and 256 sizes, you're covered.

answered Aug 20 '10 at 13:35

Android Eve

14,864
26
71
96

2

Can you explain how to do this? – Gary Eberhart Nov 25 '17 at 13:36
basically you create a .ico at 256x256 and it will be scale down automatically by the OS – Jose De Gouveia Jul 21 '22 at 09:19
icon sushi is a free tool to create .ico files from appropriate pngs. Add them in order of size, 256, 48, 32, 16. – AyCe Feb 13 '23 at 15:00

score 3 · Answer 3 · answered Aug 20 '10 at 13:33

3

For XP it's 16 x 16

answered Aug 20 '10 at 13:33

Fabian Fritz

390
3
14

score 2 · Answer 4 · answered Feb 26 '18 at 22:37

2

In ubuntu (unity) it seems to be 24x24 px.

answered Feb 26 '18 at 22:37

lenooh

10,364
5
58
49

score 2 · Answer 5 · answered Feb 27 '18 at 15:05

2

Windows 7 has 16*16 pixels icons in system tray.

answered Feb 27 '18 at 15:05

Usman Ilyas

106
1
11

score 1 · Answer 6 · answered Aug 20 '10 at 13:34

1

Outlook has an 16*16 pixels icon.

answered Aug 20 '10 at 13:34

David C

678
6
11

score 1 · Answer 7 · answered Aug 20 '10 at 17:16

I believe it has always been 16x16, but at some point between 98 and XP (Maybe it was CE vs NT?) they learned to support full color and alpha transparency. If you can, try to include a 256 color palleted version in the ICO for safe mode if not older versions of Windows.

What is the size of the icons in the system tray?

7 Answers7

Linked