Frame the subject first.

A photo can work as a shortcut or personal icon when its subject is easy to recognize at a small size. Upload a JPG or JPEG, choose the sizes to include and inspect the previews. A face or a single object usually survives a 16 px reduction better than a wide scene with many details.

Choose between a full photo and a filled square

The default Fit option keeps the full photo and adds transparent padding when its aspect ratio is not square. Crop enlarges it to fill the square and trims the longer side from the center. If the subject is near an edge, prepare a centered square crop before uploading.

Understand the background

JPEG has no alpha channel. Converting a JPG to ICO preserves its photographed or painted background; it does not cut out the subject. Only the padding created by Fit is transparent. If you already have an image with its background removed, use the PNG to ICO converter to preserve that transparency.

The ICO stores a PNG copy at every chosen size. This avoids another JPG compression step during export, but it cannot undo artifacts in the source. For vector artwork try SVG to ICO, or return to the ICO converter to select any supported format.