Private plugins start with a plain default icon. You can upload your own, or describe the icon you want and let AI draw it for you. You get a black and white line-art icon in the same style as the rest of TRMNL, ready in under a minute.
Icons are drawn by DeepSeek V4.1 Flash, the same model that powers the Agent. Drawing an icon is free and does not spend any of your usage credits.
Prerequisites
a private plugin you created or can edit
Step 1 - Open your plugin
Visit Plugins and open your private plugin. The icon card is along the right side of the settings page.
Step 2 - Describe the icon
Click Draw an icon with AI. TRMNL populates the box with your plugin's name and description, which is often good enough. You can change it to anything up to 300 characters.
We suggest describing what your plugin does, not what the icon should look like line by line. The AI picks one everyday object people connect with that idea, then adds one detail to tell it apart. Some examples:
"Bin Day. Shows which recycling bin goes out this week" draws a wheelie bin with a recycling triangle
"Plant Watering. Reminds me when to water my houseplants" draws a potted plant with a water drop
"Server Uptime. Shows whether my home servers are online" draws a screen with a pulse line
If you do prefer to describe the final output, that's OK too. Here is the result of "make a minimal rainbow, drawn from bottom left and ending in top right corner:"
Step 3 - Draw
Click Draw icon. A spinner shows while the AI works, which takes up to 30 seconds. The new icon appears on its own, you do not need to refresh the page.
The new icon replaces your current one. If you already uploaded an icon you want to keep, save a copy of it first.
Step 4 - You're done!
Your icon is now present in your collection of Plugins, in your Playlist, and anywhere else the plugin appears. Not happy with it? Change the description and draw again.
Limits
10 icons per hour, counted across all of your plugins
300 characters per description
one icon at a time per plugin
private plugins only, not native plugins or recipes you installed and cannot edit
Can it draw a company logo?
No. The AI does not search the web or look at images, and it never draws text, so it cannot copy a real logo. Ask for the "Coca-Cola logo" and you get a generic bottle. Ask for the "GitHub logo" and you get a cat that is close to the Octocat, but not quite.
If you need the real logo, upload it instead. Click your current icon and pick a PNG or SVG file from your computer.
Troubleshooting
I do not see "Draw an icon with AI".
It is only on private plugins you can edit. Check that you saved the plugin, and that it is not a recipe you installed from someone else.
It says "We could not draw an icon".
The AI did not return a usable drawing. Try again, or make the description shorter and more concrete.
Nothing happens when I click Draw icon.
You have probably drawn 10 icons in the last hour. Wait a while and try again.
The icon is not what I expected.
Name one object in the description, for example "a coffee cup with steam". Long descriptions with many ideas give the AI too much to choose from.