How To Change Your Android App Icon

An adaptive icon is an icon that consist of two layers, the foreground layer and background layer like the default icon of an android app. This makes it possible for launchers to have some visual effects. Adaptive icons work on android 8.0 (API level 26) and above.

Open android studio -> res folder-> drawable. You’ll see ic_launcher foreground.xml which will be the white default icon we are going to replace.

And below is ic_launcher_background, the greenish background we will also replace.

In the mipmap folder -> ic_launcher -> ic_launcher.xml contains an adaptive icon.xml which combines the foreground and background layer.

So to create an adaptive icon we right click on Res Folder -> Image assets. Then we select select launcher Icons(Adaptive and legacy) as Icon Type.

For the foreground layer you can replace the name and select image, clip art or text as Asset Type. In this example we’ll use alarm icon. You can also resize the asset type if it’s beyond the safe zone

In the background layer we can also choose between image or color as asset type.

Select next then finish. The default default launcher background will be overridden. You can check it out in the mipmap -> ic_launcher.xml

You can reach me on twitter @dope_soul if you have any questions. Happy coding.