How to Change the SharePoint Site Logo and Site Logo Thumbnail

When an HR team I worked with launched their new SharePoint site, the first comment from employees wasn’t about the content. It was “Why does it just say HT?” Every new site gets a colored square with the site’s initials as its logo, and on a busy intranet those squares all start to look alike. Replacing it with the department’s own logo took two minutes, and suddenly the site felt official.

In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to change both the site logo and the site logo thumbnail in SharePoint Online, which sizes to use, and one side effect on team sites that catches many site owners off guard.

Quick answer: On the site, select Settings (gear) > Change the look > Header. Under Site logo thumbnail and Site logo, select Change, upload your images, and select Save. Use a square 64 x 64 pixel image for the thumbnail and a 192 x 64 pixel image for the logo. You need Owner or Design permission on the site.

Site logo vs. site logo thumbnail

SharePoint uses two images. The site logo appears in the site’s header, next to the site name. The site logo thumbnail is the square version used everywhere else: on site cards on the SharePoint start page, in search results, and anywhere a square image fits better.

A new site shows the site’s initials for both, like the HT for this HR Team site:

Recommended image sizes and formats

Image	Recommended size	Notes
Site logo thumbnail	64 x 64 pixels	Must be square
Site logo	192 x 64 pixels	Appears in the header
Extended layout site logo	300 x 64 pixels	Only with the Extended header layout
Extended layout background	2560 x 164 pixels	Only with the Extended header layout

You can upload PNG, JPEG or SVG files. On team sites connected to a Microsoft 365 group, though, SVG isn’t allowed for the logo or the thumbnail, so use PNG there. A transparent PNG looks best on colored headers.

How to change the site logo and thumbnail

Step 1: Open Change the look

Go to the site and select the Settings gear at the top right. Choose Change the look:

Step 2: Open the Header settings

In the Change the look panel, select Header:

At the top, you can choose one of four header layouts: Minimal, Compact, Standard or Extended. Extended gives you a wider logo, logo alignment and a background image. Scroll down to find Site logo thumbnail and Site logo:

Step 3: Upload your images

Under each image, select Change and upload your file, then select Save:

The new logo appears in the site header straight away:

The thumbnail shows up on the site’s card on the SharePoint start page, where people see the sites they follow and have visited:

Cards and search results can take a little while to show the new image, so don’t worry if it doesn’t appear everywhere immediately.

What happens if you only change one image

Here’s a site that still uses the default logo and thumbnail, both showing the initials HR:

Only the site logo

If you upload a site logo but leave the thumbnail alone, the new logo appears only in the site header. Site cards and search keep showing the initials:

Only the thumbnail

If you upload only a thumbnail, SharePoint also uses it as the site logo, so the same square image appears in the header and on cards:

For the cleanest result, upload both: a square thumbnail and a wider logo designed for the header.

Team sites change the Microsoft 365 group logo too

This is the part to know before you upload. A team site connected to a Microsoft 365 group shares its logo with the group. When you change the site logo, the group’s picture changes as well, so the new image appears in Outlook and in Teams for that group. On communication sites and team sites without a group, only the SharePoint logo changes.

If the site is part of a hub, its hub navigation bar has its own logo, set separately under Settings > Hub site settings. Changing the site’s logo doesn’t change the hub’s.

Selecting the site logo always takes people to the site’s home page; there’s no setting in Change the look to point it somewhere else.

Change the logo on classic sites and SharePoint Server

Classic sites and on-premises SharePoint Server use a different page: Site Settings > Look and Feel > Title, description, and logo. On SharePoint Server, you can also set the logo with PowerShell, which is handy for many subsites at once. Run this in the SharePoint Management Shell on a farm server:

$sitelogo = "/_layouts/15/images/contoso_logo.png"
Get-SPSite "https://intranet.contoso.com/sites/HR" -Limit All |
    Get-SPWeb -Limit All |
    ForEach-Object {
        $_.SiteLogoUrl = $sitelogo
        $_.Update()
        $_.Dispose()
    }

These commands work only on SharePoint Server, not SharePoint Online. In SharePoint Online, Microsoft’s site scripts include a setSiteLogo action, but it works only on communication sites; for other bulk changes, admins usually rely on community tools such as PnP PowerShell.

These SharePoint site guides may help as you set up your site:

• SharePoint Team Site vs Communication Site
• Create an Org Chart in SharePoint Online using Organization Chart Web Part
• How to Add SharePoint Column Formatting with JSON?
• How to Format a SharePoint Online List Column using JSON (Step‑by‑Step Guide)
• SharePoint Online Site Date Format
• SharePoint Online List Permissions: Step‑by‑Step Guide for Unique, Item‑Level & Anonymous Access

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