What is the safe zone in an Android adaptive icon?

A centered circle covering about 61% (66dp of a 108dp canvas) of the foreground layer. Anything outside it may be cropped depending on the launcher's mask shape, so critical glyph content must stay inside it.

🤖 Android icons

Android adaptive icons explained

Q: What's the monochrome layer for?

Android 13 introduced themed icons, where the launcher can recolor a single-color version of your icon to match the device wallpaper. The monochrome layer is that single-color silhouette, usually derived from your foreground's alpha channel.

Adaptive icons let one icon design adapt to circle, squircle, or rounded-square launchers without ever looking cropped wrong. Here's how the layers actually work.

⏱ 4 min read🤖 Android📐 Safe zone

Three layers, one icon

🖼 Foreground

Your glyph, on a transparent background, kept inside the safe zone so any launcher mask can crop the edges freely.

🎨 Background

A full-bleed color or image layer sitting behind the foreground — no important content here, since launchers may add parallax.

⚪ Monochrome

Android 13+'s themed-icon layer: a single-color silhouette the launcher recolors to match the wallpaper.

The safe zone, precisely

Google specifies a 108×108dp canvas per layer, with a centered 66dp "safe zone" circle — about 61% of the canvas. Anything you place outside that circle risks being clipped, since different launchers apply different mask shapes (circle, squircle, rounded square) at runtime. Design your foreground glyph to live entirely inside that circle and it'll survive every launcher unchanged.

Why this differs from your Play Store icon

The adaptive icon is what appears on a device's home screen and app drawer. Your Play Store listing icon is a separate, flat 512×512 asset used only in the store itself — the two are related but exported differently.

Frequently asked

What is the safe zone in an adaptive icon?

A centered circle covering about 61% of the foreground layer — content outside it may be cropped by some launcher masks.

What's the monochrome layer for?

Android 13+ themed icons: a single-color silhouette the launcher tints to match the wallpaper.

What does "adaptive icon pack apk" mean?

See our adaptive icon pack APK guide for a plain-language explanation.