switch_app_icon

A production-grade, highly reliable Flutter plugin to dynamically switch the application launcher icon at runtime using predefined assets bundled with the app.

Dynamic App Icon Demo

High-quality developer graphic demonstrating dynamic UI icon switching.

Features

  • Runtime Icon Switching: Change launcher icons programmatically on Android and iOS instantly or with system alerts based on OS capabilities.
  • Android Adaptive Icons: Automatically splits 1024x1024 flat or transparent logos into foreground/background vectors, maintaining full circular safe zones.
  • iOS Opaque Backplane Blending: Automatically overlays transparent assets onto solid backdrops to meet AppStore opaque icon requirements.
  • Validation Engine: Scans assets, validates shape dimensions, checks duplicate casings, sanitizes filenames, and corrects size/transparency configurations automatically.
  • Developer CLI: Automates assets scaling, AndroidManifest.xml alias installations, and Info.plist CFBundleAlternateIcons setups with one shell command.

Installation

Add of switch_app_icon package under your project's pubspec.yaml dependencies:

dependencies:
  flutter:
    sdk: flutter
  switch_app_icon: ^0.0.1  # Or specify path dependency locally

Ensure you run:

flutter pub get

Setup

Create a local source directory in your project's root: assets/app_icons/. Place all alternate icons there as 1024x1024 PNG files.

Example workspace structure:

my_flutter_app/
  assets/
    app_icons/
      default.png       <-- Primary, default application app icon
      dark_icon.png     <-- Alternate icon variant 1
      festive_gold.png  <-- Alternate icon variant 2

Note

default.png is mandatory. It represents your application's fallback standard launcher icon.

Then, register this assets directory in your pubspec.yaml:

flutter:
  assets:
    - assets/app_icons/

CLI Automated Setup (Fastest)

Run the automated CLI generation pipeline. This utility validates files, handles sizes and transparencies, generates assets, compiles mipmaps, and configures platform manifests with zero configuration:

dart run switch_app_icon_cli:generate

What does the CLI automate?

Android

  1. Checks for name collisions, size dimensions (converts to 1024x1024 automatically in-memory), and formats filenames to conform to Android resources standard ([a-z0-9_]).
  2. Creates legacy, round, and adaptive icon layers:
    • Transparent PNGs: Treated as Foreground. The Background is generated as a solid opaque white canvas.
    • Opaque (Flat) PNGs: Padds the logo to 66% (safe zone) for the Foreground, and uses the raw flat canvas as the Background.
  3. Generates XML wrappers under mipmap-anydpi-v26/ic_launcher_{icon}.xml.
  4. Injects activity-alias items to AndroidManifest.xml inside <!-- switch_app_icon:inject:start --> comments automatically.

iOS

  1. Generates 5 distinct alternate sizes: @2x (120x120), @3x (180x180), iPad @1x (76x76), iPad @2x (152x152), and iPad Pro @2x (167x167).
  2. Automatically blends transparent images onto a solid white background (preventing alpha channel app rejection).
  3. Modifies Info.plist injecting CFBundleAlternateIcons setups within XML tags.

Manual Configuration (Fallback)

If you prefer manual control over manifest configurations:

Android Configuration

In android/app/src/main/AndroidManifest.xml, configure an <activity-alias> for each variant targeting .MainActivity, and disable them by default:

<activity-alias
    android:name=".MainActivitydark_icon"
    android:enabled="false"
    android:exported="true"
    android:icon="@mipmap/ic_launcher_dark_icon"
    android:targetActivity=".MainActivity">
    <intent-filter>
        <action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN"/>
        <category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER"/>
    </intent-filter>
</activity-alias>

iOS Configuration

In ios/Runner/Info.plist, declare alternate icons inside the CFBundleIcons key:

<key>CFBundleIcons</key>
<dict>
    <key>CFBundleAlternateIcons</key>
    <dict>
        <key>dark_icon</key>
        <dict>
            <key>CFBundleIconFiles</key>
            <array>
                <string>dark_icon-2x</string>
                <string>dark_icon-3x</string>
            </array>
            <key>UIPrerenderedIcon</key>
            <false/>
        </dict>
    </dict>
</dict>

Dart API Usage Examples

Exposes a clean client static API representing SwitchAppIcon.

1. Check Platform Support

Alternate launcher changing requires Android 8.0+ or iOS 10.3+.

bool isSupported = await SwitchAppIcon.isSupported();
if (isSupported) {
  print("Device supports runtime launcher switching!");
}

2. Available Alternate Icons

Gets a list of all configured alternate icon suffix names (excluding default).

List<String> list = await SwitchAppIcon.availableIcons();
print("Configured alternates: $list"); // ['dark_icon', 'festive_gold']

3. Get Active Icon

Returns the active icon name. If default, it returns 'default'.

String active = await SwitchAppIcon.current();
print("Current active icon: $active");

4. Change Launcher Icon

Dynamically swaps to one of the configured alternate names.

try {
  await SwitchAppIcon.change('dark_icon');
  print("Icon updated successfully");
} on SwitchAppIconException catch (e) {
  print("Failed to change icon: ${e.message}");
}

5. Revert to Default Icon

Re-enables the primary .MainActivity component and reverts change.

try {
  await SwitchAppIcon.reset();
  print("Reverted to base default launcher icon.");
} on SwitchAppIconException catch (e) {
  print("Reset failed: ${e.message}");
}

Example Application 📱

The switch_app_icon package includes a fully functional Example Application to demonstrate dynamic launcher icon switching in action. It is intentionally simple so you can quickly understand how to integrate the package into your own projects.

Bundled Icons 🎨

The example app comes pre-configured with six beautiful predefined launcher icons:

  • Default (Flutter Original)
  • Cat 🐱
  • Dog 🐶
  • Fox 🦊
  • Panda 🐼
  • Rocket 🚀

All launcher icons are bundled with the application and switched entirely at runtime. Under the hood, this works seamlessly by leveraging native Android <activity-alias> configurations and iOS CFBundleAlternateIcons.

Interactive Demo 🛠️

  • Select an Icon: Tap any icon in the grid to select it.
  • Apply Icon: Pressing the "Apply Icon" button changes the device's launcher icon to your selection.
  • Reset to Default: Instantly restores the original fallback application icon.
  • Random Icon: Randomly selects and applies one of the predefined alternate icons.

💡 Pro Tip: The example app is just a playground! We encourage you to replace these demo animal icons with your own gorgeous branding and custom artwork when building your app! ✨

Best Practices

  • Avoid frequent switches: Constantly switching launcher icons can trigger platform rate limits, particularly on iOS. Limit switching to actions like theme changes or achievements.
  • Run the CLI on changes: If you add, delete, or rename files in assets/app_icons/, immediately rerun the CLI tool to refresh compiled output and keep files in sync.
  • File Naming: Keep filename characters under standard lowercase style (^[a-z0-9_]+$). The CLI validator automatically sanitizes non-compliant names, but maintaining natural name compatibility keeps code clear.

Known Limitations

  • iOS Alert Banner: Changing alternate icons on iOS triggers a system alert dialog displaying: "You have changed the icon for...". This is a hardcoded system security popup on iOS and cannot be bypassed.
  • App Drawer Recents: When switching icons on Android, the launcher environment restarts the background services of the application. This causes the app status to briefly rebuild and current background processes to cycle, which is normal Android package manager behavior.
  • iPad alternates: Always supply ipad alternate keys (CFBundleIcons~ipad) whenever compiling iOS; our automated CLI tool takes care of this by default.

Troubleshooting & FAQs

Q: Why does the app crash or restart when I change the icon on Android?

On Android, changing the enabled components via Package Manager kills the app process in background to rebuild launcher shortcuts. This is standard OS behavior. Ensure you save user preferences or app state before calling SwitchAppIcon.change().

Q: Can my launcher icon draw dynamic graphics or graphs from network APIs?

No. App alternate icons must be statically resolved and bundled into resources at compile-time. Operating systems do not permit remote asset loading of launcher icons for security reasons.

Q: The changes are not updating on iOS!

Ensure you ran dart run switch_app_icon:generate. If assets still display old versions, perform a clean rebuild:

flutter clean && flutter run

Migration Guide

If migrating from primitive single-purpose packages:

  1. Delete any hardcoded <activity-alias> elements from AndroidManifest.xml that could clash.
  2. Clean out old Xcode alternate icons configuration blocks from Info.plist.
  3. Drop your raw logo files in assets/app_icons/ naming them clean suffix styles.
  4. Run dart run switch_app_icon:generate to finalize.

Libraries

switch_app_icon