---
title: "Set a custom icon for push notifications"
slug: "android-custom-icon"
updated: 2026-06-09T21:51:25Z
published: 2026-06-09T21:51:25Z
canonical: "docs.xtremepush.com/android-custom-icon"
---

> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.xtremepush.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Set a custom icon for push notifications

How to customise the icon in your push notifications in Android

It is possible to set a custom icon for push notifications in Android, by using Android's custom notification icon functionality.

In order to use this functionality, a new method can be used when creating the `PushConnector` instance, e.g:

```java
mPushConnector = new PushConnector.Builder("XTREME_PUSH_APP_KEY", "GOOGLE_PROJECT_NUMBER")
            .setIcon("iconfilenamewithoutextension") .create(this);
```

This will set the icon for the notifications with an image from the `res/drawable` folder of the app. In this example, the library will try to look for a file called `iconfilenamewithoutextension.jpg` or `iconfilenamewithoutextension.png` etc. in the `res/drawable` folder. If the file cannot be found, the default app icon will be used instead.

If you do set an icon, the library will also search for a color entry with the same name in one of the XML files in the `res/values` to use as a background colour behind the icon. This entry could look like the following:

```xml
<!-- color int as #AARRGGBB (alpha, red, green, blue) -->
<color name="iconfilenamewithoutextension">#ff2266ff</color>
```

On Android 5.0 and later you are encouraged to set an icon that is in keeping with their design guidelines (icons should be white only and have transparent sections for a background colour to show through).

So on any Android device running android 5 or later, if your notification icon is not set, the icon in the notification will show as a white square as shown below:

![1440](https://cdn.document360.io/b056e88b-f6c1-4bd2-b5b8-08e9336a17c9/Images/Documentation/3cf1898-Screenshot_20151206-212851-2(1).png?sv=2026-02-06&spr=https&st=2026-11-15T01%3A19%3A08Z&se=2026-11-15T02%3A19%3A08Z&sr=c&sp=r&sig=QzneRu%2FQSzYJOr2oQw4jw3TvWbqThpT98UhhiX%2Bn%2BRg%3D)