Android Adaptive Icons Explained

Introduced in Android 8.0 (Oreo), adaptive icons allow a single app icon to take on different shapes depending on the device manufacturer's UI theme (e.g., circles on Pixel, squircles on Samsung).

How they work

A true adaptive icon is built using two distinct layers defined in XML:

• Background Layer: Must be completely opaque.
• Foreground Layer: Can contain transparency and your actual logo.

The Android system places these layers on top of each other and applies a mask. Because the layers are separate, the system can animate them independently, creating a parallax effect when the user drags the icon.

The "Safe Zone"

Both layers must be sized at 108 x 108 dp. However, the mask applied by the system will cut off the edges. The inner 72 x 72 dp area is considered the "safe zone". Anything inside this zone is guaranteed not to be clipped, regardless of whether the final shape is a circle, square, or teardrop.