Favicon generator. For real.

A favicon is a small icon representing a website, typically displayed in web browser tabs.

In the image above, the favicon appears to the left of the webpage title. It serves as a visual logo, helping visitors quickly recognize and remember the website as a distinct brand, especially when browsing multiple tabs.

Technically, the favicon originated as a file named favicon.ico stored in the root directory of a website. Browsers followed this convention to locate it directly. However, modern favicons have evolved significantly in both usage and technical complexity.

Favicon Usage

Favicons appear in several places.

Tabs and Bookmarks

As mentioned, the most common and well-known use of the favicon is in web browser tabs.

Favicons can also be found in bookmarks.

More generally, browsers use favicons wherever quick website identification is helpful. For example, Android Chrome can display multiple tabs simultaneously with page thumbnails to let users quickly choose among them, displaying favicons for easy recognition.

In addition, Firefox on Android uses favicons in the navigation history to help users quickly spot the entry they are looking for.

Depending on the browser and platform, favicons appear in various places, and browser developers may find new uses, further expanding their presence.

These uses require rather small icons. Although low-resolution icons are often sufficient, the reality is more complex.

Home Screen

Most browsers allow users to create home screen shortcuts to websites, sometimes called "Add to home screen." Clicking this shortcut opens the browser and takes the user directly to the saved page.

Though this feature is often associated with mobile platforms, desktop browsers also support it.

Home screen links can even resemble native apps by showing a splash screen and removing the browser’s navigation bar.

Search Engine Results Pages

Search engines crawl website favicons and display them on search engine results pages (SERPs). For example, in Google:

Bing and DuckDuckGo use a similar approach.

In this role, the favicon becomes an important part of a website’s branding. Its design, color, and recognizability can contribute to a click in a SERP.

These are just some of the use cases for favicons. You can cover them all by using RealFaviconGenerator to generate your favicon. You may also wonder why it’s important to address them.

Technical Aspects of a Favicon

When favicons were first created, they consisted of a single favicon.ico file located in a website’s root folder. This single file could have sufficed, but the modern "favicon" is actually composed of multiple icons for several reasons.

A Set of Icons...

Sometimes, the favicon appears small, as in browser tabs. But it can also appear larger, such as when added to a home screen shortcut. Using the same icon in different sizes is practical.

Favicons are also influenced by platform-specific requirements. iOS expects an icon named "Apple Touch Icon," while Android Chrome relies on the Web App Manifest. Of the files RealFaviconGenerator creates when generating a favicon, about a third are vendor-specific, while the rest follow standardized practices.

Beyond icon size, some platforms come with design guidelines. Desktop browsers support transparent icons that reveal the color of the underlying tab, whereas Apple requires the Touch icon to be opaque. Windows 8’s Metro style promoted icons as white silhouettes to match its design.

For these reasons, RealFaviconGenerator generates about six icons.

... and Markups

The classic favicon.ico and the Apple Touch Icon can both be found by convention, based on their names and locations in the root folder. Most icons, however, need to be explicitly declared depending on the situation.

These declarations are HTML markups placed in the head section of each webpage.

A typical favicon markup looks like this:

<link rel="icon" type="image/png" href="/favicon-96x96.png" sizes="96x96" />

In addition to the icon URL, it specifies its type (image/png in this example) and size (96x96).

Other Files

Most of what we call a "favicon" consists of markups and icons. However, there are also manifest files, which are referenced in HTML markup and then declare the icons, along with a few metadata. Today, the only manifest file typically needed is the Web App Manifest.

A favicon might be one of the smallest design elements on your website, but its impact is anything but small. This tiny icon has various usages, appearing in browser tabs, bookmarks, and even search results, plays a crucial role in brand recognition and user experience. For webmasters, SEO specialists, and marketers, adding a favicon isn’t just a design detail—it’s a powerful tool to make your site stand out, boost engagement, and create a professional, trustworthy online presence.

Favicons and Branding

A favicon is more than just a little icon. It’s a powerful branding tool that enhances your site’s identity and visibility. With digital spaces becoming more crowded, a well-designed favicon can be a key differentiator. Here’s how favicons support and elevate branding.

Instant Brand Recognition

A favicon helps users recognize your brand instantly, even when surrounded by numerous other open tabs. When users can quickly spot your icon in a lineup, it creates a sense of familiarity and helps them find your site again easily. For brands, this is valuable real estate in the browser, establishing a consistent presence no matter where users are on the web.

Consistency Across Platforms

Favicons appear across various devices, browsers, and operating systems, creating a uniform brand presence. Whether a user is on a desktop, tablet, or smartphone, a well-designed favicon extends your brand’s reach and supports a seamless experience across platforms. This consistency in visual branding reinforces brand identity and helps maintain a professional look across touchpoints.

Creating a Memorable User Experience

Favicons enhance the user experience by making your site memorable. For example, when users save your page as a bookmark or shortcut, your favicon becomes an easily recognizable element in their saved items. This distinct, memorable icon helps your site stand out in crowded bookmarks and browser histories, making it easy for users to return. A unique favicon with brand-specific colors or symbols can make all the difference in a competitive digital space.

Taking advantage of a Sea of Open Tabs

Let’s not overlook the common habit of keeping numerous tabs open indefinitely: even if users aren’t actively viewing your site, a memorable favicon can help keep your brand in mind among their crowded tab bar, day after day.

Favicons and Usability

Easier Navigation in Browser Tabs

Favicons are more than just a brand asset—they play a practical role in enhancing usability. As users browse the web, they often juggle multiple tabs, and a well-designed favicon can make navigating these open tabs much easier. By having a recognizable favicon, your site stands out visually, helping users quickly locate your page in a crowded tab bar.

Better Bookmarks Organization

In addition to tab identification, favicons improve organization in bookmarks. When users save your site for future reference, a unique favicon becomes a quick visual cue that helps them find your page more easily among their saved links. Favicons are also essential in mobile browsing, where many users save shortcuts to their home screens. In this context, a clear and distinctive favicon ensures your site is easy to find on smaller screens.

Unforeseen Uses

Favicons are sometimes utilized in surprising ways. For example, Google Search Console automatically retrieves your site’s favicon and displays it alongside your website’s name, making it easier to differentiate between the various sites you manage. In this way, your own favicon simplifies navigation and organization within Search Console, turning a small design detail into a helpful tool for own site management.

Favicons and SEO

While small, favicons can have a notable impact on your site’s SEO and overall search presence. Google, for instance, displays favicons alongside website names in mobile search results, making your site more visually appealing and helping it stand out from competitors. This additional visual element can increase click-through rates (CTR) by giving users an extra reason to click on your link over others, potentially driving more traffic to your site.

Favicons also contribute to user trust. A site with a favicon looks more professional and complete, which signals to users—and indirectly to search engines—that the site is legitimate and thoughtfully designed. When users recognize your favicon, they may be more likely to engage with your content or return to your site, both of which can positively affect SEO over time.

While a favicon has no impact on search rankings, its benefits for click-through rates, brand recognition, and user trust can indirectly support a site’s overall SEO strategy.

The “Broken” Look of a Website Without a Favicon

For regular users, a website without a favicon can appear incomplete or even broken. In the modern digital landscape, users expect professional sites to have every detail in place—including a favicon. When this small icon is missing, it stands out in an unexpected and negative way. Instead of your unique branding, users see a default icon or, worse, a blank placeholder that can suggest oversight or neglect.

A missing favicon might subtly imply to visitors that a site isn’t fully established or maintained, potentially undermining trust. Conversely, a well-crafted favicon signals to users that your site is polished, professional, and mindful of their experience, reinforcing confidence and encouraging further engagement.

Why You Should Trust This Guide

This page lists the icons you need to implement your favicon correctly. But there are so many resources online that claim the same, each often listing different icons.

So, what makes this one reliable? It's not just a compilation of older articles, merged into a single comprehensive resource. It's the result of many tests, some of which are published as part of RealFaviconGenerator's compatibility results. Anyone can also test RealFaviconGenerator’s favicon through the compatibility test.

favicon.ico

The favicon.ico is the oldest and most classic favicon asset. But how useful is it?

The ICO format is unique: it can contain multiple images of different sizes, allowing user agents to select the version that best fits their needs. The downside is that the entire ICO file, with all its packed images, must be downloaded before any particular image can be used.

Microsoft has long specified that favicon.ico should contain images at 16x16, 32x32, and 48x48. But how relevant is it today? Modern browsers support PNG, a more compact, standard, and convenient format.

However, there is one concrete use case for favicon.ico: PDF files. Browsers discover favicons via HTML markup, which doesn’t work for non-HTML documents like PDFs. When visiting a PDF, say https://example.com/somedoc.pdf, the browser has no way to find the site’s favicon through HTML markup.

This is where favicon.ico is handy. Browsers have an old convention of looking for /favicon.ico (at the root of the site) regardless of HTML declarations. While this is usually unnecessary, it allows browsers to display a favicon even for non-HTML documents.

Other than this specific purpose, favicon.ico doesn’t seem essential anymore. RealFaviconGenerator is still researching if it can be fully replaced with PNG and SVG icons.

PNG Favicon

The PNG format was the default favicon format for many years. However, with broad support for SVG favicons, PNGs are less essential today.

A single PNG size is sufficient: 96x96, which meets Google’s requirements for favicon display in search results.

SVG Favicon

The SVG favicon is now popular in desktop browsers, with widespread support. When available, browsers will typically use the SVG favicon over other formats.

The SVG favicon allows you to create icons for light and dark themes. However, the dark theme icon is somewhat limited: for instance, in Windows Chrome, it only appears when the operating system theme is set to dark. Chrome’s Incognito mode, which is kind of dark, doesn’t trigger the dark theme SVG.

Apple Touch Icon

Apple originally specified various sizes for the Touch icon:

• 57x57
• 60x60
• 72x72
• 76x76
• 114x114
• 120x120
• 144x144
• 152x152
• 180x180

RealFaviconGenerator helped make this list popular years ago, and some articles still recommend these sizes. However, since iOS 8 (now 10 years old), a single 180x180 icon is sufficient.

Previously, a “precomposed” Touch icon existed to prevent iOS from cropping the icon’s corners. This feature was phased out in iOS 7 or 8.

Despite being a PNG, the Touch icon doesn’t support transparency; iOS adds a black background, which affects the appearance of a transparent icon.

In short: submit a single, opaque 180x180 Touch icon.

Web App Manifest

The Web App Manifest is used by Android Chrome and other Chromium-based browsers, making it an essential component for favicons. If not provided, Chrome likely uses the Touch icon as a fallback. However, the Touch icon has rounded corners, whereas Android typically crops icons into circles. For this reason, many developers use different designs for iOS and Android, and the "Touch icon for everyone" strategy is not that great.

Android Chrome expects two icons in the Web App Manifest: 192x192 and 512x512. Chrome uses the 512x512 for the "Add to Home Screen" feature, while the purpose of the 192x192 icon needs further investigation.

Favicons might seem like a tiny detail, but their history is actually pretty interesting, and it mirrors a lot of the big shifts we've seen in web tech and design. They started as little bookmarks icons, but today, they’re scaled up to look good on any device. From their humble beginnings in Internet Explorer to their modern versions as high-res, adaptive icons, favicons have come a long way.

Favicon’s Beginnings with Internet Explorer (1999)

Favicons first appeared in 1999 with Internet Explorer 5. Microsoft wanted to help websites stand out in bookmark lists, so they added support for tiny 16x16 pixel icons in the .ico format. That’s how they got the name “favorites icon,” later shortened to “favicon.” If you bookmarked a site, it would show up with its own little icon next to the site name—handy for visually picking out your favorite sites.

At first, favicons only appeared when you bookmarked a site, so it was more of a reward for regular visitors. But as other browsers caught on, they realized favicons could also work as quick visual IDs, not just for bookmarks but for every website. By the early 2000s, browsers like Firefox, Opera, and Safari supported favicons directly in the address bar, making them visible anytime someone visited the site. This shift made favicons a basic part of website identity.

With favicons now showing up in bookmarks, address bars, and even browser tabs, they quickly became essential for website branding. Users grew to expect them everywhere online.

The iPhone and the Apple Touch Icon (2007)

When Apple released the first iPhone in 2007, they introduced the Apple Touch Icon, making websites feel more like apps. When users saved a webpage on their home screen, this icon showed up like an app icon. This moved favicons out of the browser and onto mobile home screens, giving them a whole new level of visibility.

Initially, the Apple Touch Icon was 57x57 pixels, matching the iPhone’s home screen. But as Apple rolled out devices with higher-res displays, they upped the recommended icon sizes to keep things looking crisp. Now, 180x180 pixels is the standard for Apple devices. This introduced the idea of responsive icons and hinted at the mobile-first world we were heading toward. Suddenly, favicons were becoming must-haves on home screens.

Android’s Adaptation (2010)

With the rise of smartphones, Android took Apple's lead and started supporting home screen icons in 2010. Android’s take on these icons wasn’t as strict as Apple’s—developers could set various resolutions and formats, leading to a lot of variation early on. But as screen resolutions improved, Android also started recommending high-res icons to keep things sharp across devices.

Android eventually standardized around 192x192 and 512x512 icons, and introduced "adaptive icons" that automatically fit different shapes, like round or square. This helped give Android’s home screen a cleaner look, with icons adapting to different devices while still showing unique branding.

Windows Metro UI and browserconfig.xml (2012)

In 2012, Microsoft rolled out Windows 8 with the Metro UI, a tile-based interface that let users pin sites directly to their Start screen. To give sites control over how they looked on Start tiles, Microsoft introduced the browserconfig.xml file. This let developers specify icons and customize tile colors, backgrounds, and even logo positioning.

With options for multiple icon sizes and layouts, browserconfig.xml helped make websites look consistent in Metro’s tile-based layout. Windows 10 continued to support it, but since Microsoft dropped Internet Explorer for Edge, this feature faded out. Edge doesn’t use browserconfig.xml, so now favicons on Windows mostly follow standard web practices.

The MacBook Touch Bar and the Pinned Tab Icon (2016)

When Apple introduced the MacBook Pro with a Touch Bar in 2016, they added support for favicons there too. Safari also got an update with a specific type of favicon called the Pinned Tab Icon, which was monochrome and designed to stand out on both the Touch Bar and Safari’s pinned tabs.

Pinned Tab Icons took a different approach to favicon design. Apple asked developers to make these icons single-color so they’d fit better with different themes. But in 2021, Apple started phasing out the Touch Bar from MacBooks, so the Pinned Tab Icon’s future is unclear.

The Rise of the SVG Favicon (2017)

In 2017, the SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) favicon changed the game. Unlike older formats like .ico or .png, SVGs are resolution-independent, meaning they scale smoothly to any size without losing quality. This was huge for modern screens with high pixel densities, making SVG ideal for everything from smartphones to big desktop monitors.

SVG favicons can be scaled dynamically, support transparency, and are lightweight. This format lets developers use just one icon that can adapt to different display requirements. Firefox and Opera were the first to support SVG favicons, and Chrome and Edge followed, making SVGs a solid new standard. However, not all platforms support SVG favicons, so many sites still offer .png or .ico as backups.

Today, the SVG favicon is a flexible, scalable solution for modern web design. It’s a big step forward, allowing one icon to work everywhere without needing different files for each size.