What is ICO? ICO, short name for Icon, is used as the file extension for image icon files. .ICO files are binary files that can be opened by Windows Paint program or other image editing software. See the sample .ICO file included below.

File Extension: .ICO

MIME Type: image/ico, image/x-icon

File Content: Image Icon

.ICO files are small image icon files saved as binary files. Here are the first 128 bytes of a sample .ICO file, favicon.ico, dumped in HEX values:

00 00 01 00 01 00 10 10 00 00 00 00 00 00 68 05 ..............h.
00 00 16 00 00 00 28 00 00 00 10 00 00 00 20 00 ................
00 00 01 00 08 00 00 00 00 00 40 01 00 00 00 00 ................
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
00 00 ff ff ff 00 ab b1 3a 00 8e cd d0 00 4c 85 ..............L.
08 00 f2 df 92 00 53 9f 72 00 b1 c7 7b 00 bf eb ......S.r.......
ff 00 89 96 18 00 54 91 39 00 b3 ca b3 00 d2 c7 ......T.9.......
5d 00 ff ff db 00 67 ae 8b 00 aa ba 5d 00 65 a2 ......g.......e.

.ICO Icon file sample: Click sample.ico to download.

.ICO Icon files can be created and modified by these software:

• MS Paint - Creates and edits .ICO image icon files.
• Windows Photo Viewer - Diplays .ICO image icon files.