Notion Icons: Built-In Icons, Custom Uploads and Free Packs

A Notion icon is the small emoji or image shown at a page's top left and beside its name in the sidebar. To add one, hover over the top of the page, click Add icon, and pick from the Emoji, Icon or Upload tab; a custom upload should ideally be 280 × 280 pixels. I'd start with the built-in Icon tab: its icons share one style and come in 10 colors, so the sidebar stays consistent. Upload your own only when a page needs something Notion doesn't have, like a client's logo.

For a workspace people read in both light and dark mode, choose gray or colored icons, since black icons fade on a dark background and white ones on a light one. For a logo you'll reuse across many pages, upload it once and tick Add to workspace Emoji library so it becomes a custom emoji. For a matching set beyond Notion's own, pick one free pack and stay with it; the comparison below covers 14 of them by size, dark-mode support and how each gets into Notion.

Where does a Notion icon appear?

Every page can have one icon, either an emoji or an image you upload yourself. Notion's help page on styling pages says it appears “at the top left of your page and in the sidebar next to it,” and that this “helps make pages memorable and easy to find.” That's the job to design for: an icon earns its place when it makes a long sidebar faster to scan.

Icons turn up in three other places:

• Callout blocks. Every callout comes with an icon you can change, replace with your own image or remove.
• The workspace. Your workspace has its own icon in Settings, separate from any page.
• Custom emoji. An image saved to the workspace Emoji library works as a page icon, a reaction or inline in a page.

The cover is a separate element: a banner image across the top of the page, added with Add cover from the same hover area. It has its own size advice, so this guide sticks to icons.

Add, change or remove a page icon

1. Hover over the top of the page and click Add icon. If the page already has one, click the existing icon instead.
2. Pick from one of three tabs: Emoji for a standard emoji, Icon for Notion's own icon set, or Upload for your own image file or an image URL.
3. If you'd rather not choose, click 🔀 to cycle through randomly chosen emojis until one fits.
4. To take the icon off, click it and choose Remove.

Changing an icon is the same move as adding one: click the current icon and pick again. Icon websites describe the URL route as pasting a link: Notion VIP's icon page tells you to copy the URL and “paste it as a Link when selecting your icon in Notion.” In Notion's own help, that's the image URL option on the Upload tab.

When you upload a file, Notion also offers a checkbox labeled Add to workspace Emoji library. Tick it when the image will come up again, such as a client's logo, and the upload becomes a custom emoji anyone in the workspace can reuse.

Emoji, Notion icon, upload or link: which should you use?

All five options end up in the same spot on the page. They differ in what you control and how much upkeep they need.

I'd make the Icon tab the default and keep uploads for exceptions. Notion's August 2022 release notes introduced that tab with a set of 600+ icons and 10 colors for pages and callout blocks. One style across the sidebar turns icons into labels; a mix of packs, emoji and logos makes them decoration.

For a client's logo, I'd upload the file rather than paste a link. A link points at an image on someone else's site, so the icon depends on that address staying the same. And I'd keep status out of icons altogether: a checkmark for “done” only means something if everyone knows the code, while a Status or Select property shows up in views and filters.

What size and format should a custom icon be?

Make custom icons square at 280 × 280 pixels. Notion's help gives that size for page icons (“Uploaded icons should ideally be 280 x 280 pixels”) and again for callout icons, and Notion Everything's roundup of free icon libraries recommends the same 280 × 280, adding that smaller images are fine if they're only for callouts. Two sources, one figure: there's no range to split.

Notion's help on images, files and media lists PNG, JPG, GIF, SVG and WEBP among the supported file types and says PNG and JPG images must be under 5MB on both the Free Plan and paid plans. That page covers uploads in general rather than the icon picker in particular. A PNG exported at 280 × 280 pixels stays well under that ceiling, so size is the setting that matters.

SVG files explain a quirk the roundup flags with Simple.ink's library: changing the size on the icon site “won't reflect in your Notion workspace, as all icons are in the vector .SVG format.” Set the color or stroke width there and ignore the size setting.

Animated GIF icons

A GIF works like any other image. The roundup says to upload it or link to it exactly as you would a static icon, and it points to Lordicon for animated icons, with more than 1,100 free icons in two styles, plus Giphy and Tenor for anything else. It also advises using animated icons sparingly, and I agree: one moving icon draws the eye to an important page, while a dozen of them pull it everywhere.

Free Notion icon packs, by the numbers

Free packs fall into two groups: small sets drawn for Notion, and large libraries you search for one symbol at a time. The figures below are each site's own counts or the counts in the Notion Everything roundup. They measure catalog size, not quality, and the sites count differently (single icons, color variations or merged sets), so the table compares them side by side rather than averaging them.

The three Notion-made packs with a count land close together: 176 to 286 icons, with a median of 282 across Notion VIP, Super.so and Vyshnav's set. Notion VIP's own page lists 176 icon names across 20 categories, the same total the roundup gives. The larger libraries run from 1,000+ icons at Simple.ink to over 3 million at The Noun Project. Across the 14 third-party sources, seven let you copy a link instead of downloading a file, and five offer light and dark versions, a dark-mode preview or a dark-mode switch.

For a client-facing workspace, I'd pick one of the small Notion-made packs. Notion VIP's 176, for example, are sorted into categories such as Planning & Productivity, People & Body, Money and Tech, Media & Files, and every icon matches. Go to a large library when you need one specific symbol the small packs lack, and stay inside a single style there.

Check the license before a page goes public

Free to download doesn't mean free of conditions. Icons8's free license asks you to “set a link to icons8.com wherever you use them,” and for websites, to add that link “on all pages using our content,” with a footer link acceptable if that's most pages; a paid license removes the link requirement. Notion VIP describes its set as “free-to-use icons sourced from Icons8,” so that's the license I'd read before publishing a page as a Notion website with those icons on it.

The roundup notes that The Noun Project's downloads are free while customizing an icon requires a premium account. Flaticon also ranks for “notion icons” with a user collection named “notion icons”; read Flaticon's own attribution terms before a page that uses its icons goes public.

Keep icons readable in dark mode

Choose gray or colored icons if anyone opens the workspace in dark mode. The roundup puts it plainly: a black icon “won't look good in dark mode,” white icons have the same problem in light mode, and gray or colored icons work in both.

The packs above give you two more routes:

• Paired versions. Notion VIP and Super.so offer light and dark icons, Notionicons.website has three tones for each mode, and Vyshnav's set lets you preview icons in both modes before you download.
• Color before you copy. notionicons.so shows Dark Mode, Color, HEX and Stroke Width controls, so you can set the color before using Copy Notion Link.

For pages several people share, I'd choose a mid-tone color over a light or dark version. The roundup's rule says gray and colored icons hold up in both modes, and you don't have to know which mode each reader uses.

Turn a logo into a custom emoji

A custom emoji is an image saved to your workspace's Emoji library. Once saved, it works as a page icon, a reaction or inline in a page, and anyone in the workspace can use it. There are three ways to add one:

1. While uploading a page icon, tick Add to workspace Emoji library.
2. In a page, type /emoji, select + at the bottom, upload an image, give it a name and select Save.
3. Go to Settings in your sidebar, open Emoji and select Add emoji.

The Settings route is also where you tidy up. Notion's workspace settings help says members can select ••• next to a custom emoji they added and choose Edit or Delete. Workspace owners can edit or delete any emoji, and they can turn on Limit custom emoji creation to workspace owners to stop members from adding new ones.

That workspace-wide reach is the access question to settle first. A client's logo saved as a custom emoji sits in a library every member can use, which is handy for your own team and worth a thought when one workspace serves several clients. For a small team, I'd let one owner curate the library and switch on the owner-only setting once it holds a few brand marks.

One limit to plan around: Notion says custom emojis won't render in mobile widgets. For a page you follow from a phone widget, I'd use a standard emoji or a Notion icon instead.

Change callout, database and workspace icons

Callout icons

Every callout block comes with an icon. Click it to choose a new one, or click it and select Remove to drop it. Callouts take the same kinds of icons as pages: upload your own image (Notion's ideal size is again 280 × 280 pixels), paste a link to an image, or click 🔀 for random options. Since the 2022 update added the Icon tab to callouts as well, the built-in set and its colors work here too.

Database pages and tabs

Each record in a database is a page, so it takes an icon the same way: open it and use Add icon at the top. Notion's API reference for pages shows exactly that in its example, a database page with a 🐞 emoji as its icon. If you want a picture across each card rather than a small mark, that's a separate setting: a gallery view's card preview.

Databases can also show icons on their tabs. An April 2026 Notion release lets you display a database's tabs as Text and icon, Text only or Icon only. The setting is only for you, so switching to icons only tidies your own view without changing anyone else's.

Icons set through the API

Pages created through code carry the same icons. The API reference lists four types for a page's icon: Emoji, Icon, Custom emoji or File. For the request itself, the guide to creating database pages through the Notion API walks through the token, the data source ID and each property type.

Workspace icon

The workspace icon lives in Settings, not on a page. Go to Settings in your sidebar, select General under Workspace, then under Icon click your current icon and choose an emoji or upload your own image. Notion notes that many of these settings are visible only to admins on a Plus or Enterprise Plan and don't appear in the mobile app at all, so if Icon isn't there for you, ask whoever administers the workspace.

Fix common Notion icon problems

My verdict: one icon style, then exceptions

Use the Icon tab for most pages, upload a custom image only where a logo or a specific symbol earns it, and keep status in properties rather than icons. For a freelancer or a small team, I would start with one sidebar section: give each kind of page one icon (clients, projects, meeting notes) and check whether the sidebar gets easier to scan before restyling the whole workspace. If you're building a company wiki, apply the same rule to its top-level sections. Notion handles the picker; you still decide what each icon means and keep that meaning consistent.

Questions about Notion icons

How do I put an emoji inside text instead of using it as the page icon?

Type a colon followed by the emoji's name, like :fire for 🔥. You can also use your system's emoji picker: ctrl + cmd + space on a Mac, or windows key + . (or windows key + ;) on Windows 10.

Where can I get the Notion logo as an icon?

Icons8's Notion logo set offers the logo with matching interface glyphs in PNG, SVG, PDF and several other formats, all on a transparent background. Free use follows the Icons8 link requirement described above.