What Is a Favicon?

A favicon is the small square picture that sits beside a website's name in a browser tab. You'll also spot it in bookmarks, in your browsing history, on phone home screens and, for plenty of sites, next to the link in Google Search results. The word is short for "favourite icon". Internet Explorer 5 introduced the idea in 1999, when the icon only showed up in the Favorites menu.

It's tiny, but it earns its place. With a dozen tabs open you find the right one by its icon long before you read a title. A good favicon makes a brand recognisable at a glance, while a missing one, the blank page or generic globe, makes a site look unfinished.

That's why people go looking for other sites' icons. A designer needs a realistic browser tab for a mock-up. A developer is checking what a client's site really serves. Someone else has lost the original logo file and the live website is the only copy left. A favicon downloader lets you get a favicon from a website, or download a website icon, in a couple of clicks, with no digging through source code. You'll also see the same kind of tool called a favicon extractor, favicon grabber or favicon finder. The names differ, the job doesn't: point it at a domain and get the icon back.

What This Free Favicon Downloader Does

This online favicon downloader takes any public website address and lays out every icon it can find as a row of tiles, with the real pixel size printed under each one. You pick a tile, check it in the preview, then download that single file, copy its direct link, or save the whole set as a zip. There's no account, no email box and no daily limit, so it works as a favicon downloader with no signup for anyone who needs a logo in a hurry. Think of it as a website icon extractor online, free, and ready whenever you are.

It looks in two places. First it asks Google's favicon service for six sizes, from 16 up to 256 pixels, and keeps one tile for each size that really is different. Then it checks the site itself for the usual files: favicon.ico, favicon.svg, apple-touch-icon.png and the older apple-touch-icon-precomposed.png. That's how it doubles as a favicon.ico downloader and an Apple touch icon downloader, and you can download favicons in ICO, PNG and SVG without switching tools.

One honest limit: it doesn't read the page's HTML, so an icon stored under an unusual filename can slip past it. The manual methods further down cover that case.

It also isn't a favicon generator. A generator takes your own artwork and builds an icon set from it. A downloader works the other way round and finds the icon a site already uses, so pick whichever matches the job in front of you.

How to Use the Favicon Downloader

The tool sits at the top of this page. Here's the quick version, followed by a tour of every part of it so nothing feels like guesswork.

1. Enter a website. Type a domain such as github.com or paste a full link. The tool keeps only the domain, so a long address with a path, a query string or a leading www. is fine. Capital letters, port numbers and trailing slashes are cleaned up too. Raw IP addresses and names without a dot, like localhost, are turned away because there's no public site behind them to look up.
2. Press Grab icons. On a phone the button shrinks to a magnifying glass. Pressing Enter does the same job. Pasting a link doesn't start a search by itself, which gives you a chance to tidy the address first.
3. Wait a moment. While the tool works, a scan line sweeps over the preview and grey tiles shimmer. The badge in the top corner changes from Checking every size to something like 6 icons found.
4. Click any tile. The preview and the details line update straight away, and you can flick between sizes as often as you like.
5. Download, copy or zip. Use the three buttons at the bottom of the results card, all explained below.

A tour of the results panel

• Quick chips. The row under the search box offers a few well-known sites to try. Chips with a dashed outline are your own last three searches, remembered in your browser only, so you can jump back to a site with one tap.
• Status badge. It reads Ready, Checking every size, Check the address, No favicon found, or the number of icons found. On small screens it shrinks to a coloured dot: grey when idle, amber while working, green on success and red when something's wrong.
• Size tiles. Each tile shows the icon, its measured size and where it came from: Google, favicon.ico, favicon.svg or Apple touch. A green tick means the size was verified. An SVG tile says Vector instead of a size, because a vector has no fixed pixel dimensions. If Google answers a request for 64 pixels with the 48-pixel image it already gave you, the duplicate is dropped.
• Magnifier preview. The selected icon is drawn large on the left. Small icons are shown pixel by pixel, with a faint grid once they're enlarged far enough, and bigger screens also show the zoom percentage. The three round dots in the corner switch the backdrop between a transparency grid, plain white and dark, which is the quickest way to catch a logo with white lettering that vanishes on a light page.
• Browser-tab mock-up. Under the preview, a miniature tab shows the icon next to the site's name, roughly the way visitors will see it.
• Details line. Above the tiles you'll see something like 180×180 px, PNG, followed by the source and the words size verified. When a favicon.ico file holds several images, a note such as "file holds 16, 32, 48 px" appears a moment later.
• Brand colour chip. The main colour of the largest icon appears at the top right with its hex code, and a click copies the code. It's an estimate of the dominant colour rather than an official brand value, so treat it as a starting point for mock-ups.
• Download. Saves the selected tile. Files are named after the site and size, for example github.com-32x32.png, and the ending (PNG, ICO, SVG and so on) comes from the file's contents, so a mislabelled file still gets the right extension. If your browser blocks the save, the icon opens in a new tab and you can save it from there.
• Copy link. Copies the direct address of the selected icon. For Google tiles that's Google's favicon address, and for favicon.ico or Apple touch tiles it's the site's own file.
• Favicon pack (.zip). Bundles everything into one download. The section on the pack below lists exactly what's inside.

Which tile should you download?

• A browser tab or bookmark: the 32×32 tile, or 16×16 if that's all there is.
• An iPhone or iPad home screen shortcut: the 180×180 Apple touch icon.
• An Android home screen or installed web app: 192×192 and 512×512.
• A slide, document or mock-up where the icon will be shown big: the largest tile you can find, or the SVG if there is one.
• A whole website: skip the single tiles and take the favicon pack.

How to Download a Favicon From Any Website

The tool does the legwork, but it helps to know what happens underneath. The manual routes also come in handy when a site tucks its icon away somewhere unusual.

Method 1: Use the tool above

Enter the domain, press Grab icons and pick a tile. It's the quickest way to get a favicon from a URL and see every size side by side, and it works for any public domain, including subdomains such as blog.example.com.

Method 2: Try the standard address

Most sites with a classic icon serve it from the same predictable place. Type the site's address followed by /favicon.ico into your browser, for example example.com/favicon.ico, and press Enter. If the file exists you'll see the icon on its own page and can right-click to save it. Swap the filename for /apple-touch-icon.png or /favicon.svg to try the other usual spots.

Method 3: Read the page source to extract a favicon from a website

When the icon isn't at a standard address, the page itself will say where it is. Right-click an empty part of the site, choose View Page Source, then search the page for the word icon. You're looking for lines like these:

<link rel="icon" type="image/png" href="/assets/brand-32.png">
<link rel="apple-touch-icon" href="/assets/brand-180.png">

The href is the address of the file. If it starts with a slash, put the site's domain in front of it, then paste the full address into a new tab. This is also how you find files with unusual names that an automatic extractor might miss.

Want to see it in action? To download the Google favicon, type google.com. For the GitHub favicon, type github.com. Wikipedia and YouTube make good tests as well. It's an easy way to see how differently sites treat their icons: some publish a full ladder of sizes, others a single small file. Whatever the domain, the same steps get you a favicon from any domain in seconds.

Favicon Sizes and Formats Explained: 16x16, 32x32, 180x180 and 512x512

Different places draw the icon at different sizes, and a small image stretched up always looks soft, so browsers and phones each ask for the size that suits them. These are the ones you'll meet most often.

Size	Pixels	Where you'll see it	Usual file name
16×16	256	Browser tabs and bookmarks	favicon.ico
32×32	1,024	Sharper tabs on high-density screens	favicon-32x32.png
48×48	2,304	Windows shortcuts and Google Search (recommended minimum)	favicon.ico
180×180	32,400	iPhone and iPad home screen	apple-touch-icon.png
192×192	36,864	Android home screen and installed web apps	android-chrome-192x192.png
512×512	262,144	Splash screens and install prompts for web apps	android-chrome-512x512.png

The pixel counts show why sizes can't be swapped around freely. The two charts below draw the same six sizes to scale.

Both charts are drawn to scale against the 512×512 icon. The small bars in the second chart look tiny because those icons really are tiny.

A 512×512 icon holds 262,144 pixels, which is 1,024 times as many as the 256 in a 16×16 one. That's why you can't quietly enlarge a 16-pixel icon and expect a sharp result: the detail was never there to begin with. It's also why this tool never invents bigger sizes for you.

If your goal is a favicon in Google Search, Google's published guidelines ask for a square image of at least 8×8 pixels and strongly recommend 48×48 or larger. Google reads the icon from the link tags on your home page, supports one favicon per site, and prefers an address that doesn't keep changing. Any valid format is accepted, SVG included.

ICO, PNG or SVG?

Format	Sizes in one file	Scales cleanly	Best used for
ICO	Several at once, often 16, 32 and 48	No	A safe default at /favicon.ico for every browser
PNG	One per file	No	Sharp fixed sizes such as 32, 180, 192 and 512
SVG	Any size from one file	Yes	Modern browsers, with an ICO or PNG as backup

All three can have transparent backgrounds. The sensible modern setup is an SVG or PNG as the main icon with an ICO as a safety net, because SVG favicons aren't supported quite as widely as ICO and PNG.

What's Inside the Favicon Pack (.zip)

The Favicon pack button turns a single lookup into a favicon pack download you can drop straight onto a website. The zip is named after the site, such as example.com-favicons.zip, and contains the following.

File	What it is	Included when
original folder	Every icon the tool found, untouched	Always
favicon-16x16.png favicon-32x32.png favicon-48x48.png	Resized PNG copies	The source icon is at least that big
favicon.ico	One ICO bundling the 16, 32 and 48 pixel versions	Those small sizes were made
apple-touch-icon.png	180×180 PNG for iPhone and iPad	The source is at least 180 pixels
android-chrome-192x192.png android-chrome-512x512.png	Icons for Android and web apps	The source is at least 192 or 512 pixels
site.webmanifest	A starter manifest naming those two icons	Either of them was made
favicon-html.txt	The link tags to paste into your pages	Always

Two things worth knowing. First, the pack never enlarges anything. It builds only the sizes that are no bigger than the largest icon the tool found, so a site that publishes a 64-pixel icon won't get a fake 512-pixel one. Second, if the only icon found is an SVG, the pack contains that original file and the HTML note but no resized PNGs, because the tool resizes from pixel images only.

To use it, upload the files to the root folder of your site and paste the tags from favicon-html.txt into the head of your pages. They look like this:

<link rel="icon" href="/favicon.ico" sizes="any">
<link rel="icon" type="image/png" sizes="32x32" href="/favicon-32x32.png">
<link rel="icon" type="image/png" sizes="16x16" href="/favicon-16x16.png">
<link rel="apple-touch-icon" sizes="180x180" href="/apple-touch-icon.png">
<link rel="manifest" href="/site.webmanifest">

When the tool can work out the main colour of the icon, it adds a theme-colour tag as well.

What People Use a Favicon Extractor For

• Mock-ups and mood boards. A real icon in a real-looking tab makes a design concept far more convincing than a grey square.
• Brand and competitor audits. Check whether a client's website has the full set of sizes, or see what a competitor is actually serving.
• Site migrations. When the original logo files have gone missing, the live site's icon may be the only copy you can get back.
• Bookmark managers, dashboards and link pages. Small icons beside links make a list far easier to scan.
• Documentation and slide decks. A logo next to each tool name saves readers from re-reading the labels.
• Debugging. Confirm what a site really serves at its favicon address, which isn't always what your browser has cached and is showing.

How to Add a Favicon to Your Website

1. Get the files. Download the favicon pack above, or export your own icon at the sizes in the table.
2. Upload them. Put the files in your site's root folder so that favicon.ico sits at yourdomain.com/favicon.ico.
3. Paste the tags. Add the link tags to the head of every page, or once in your theme or template if you have one.
4. Refresh properly. Browsers hold on to favicons stubbornly. Hard-refresh the page, or open it in a private window, to see the new one.

Most platforms save you the code. Blogger has a favicon setting in its dashboard, WordPress has Site Identity in the customiser, and builders such as Wix, Squarespace and Shopify offer an upload field, sometimes called a browser icon. If you're still working out what a new site will cost, hosting, design and all, our website cost calculator is a good place to start before you get to finishing touches like this one.

Troubleshooting Common Problems

Problem	Likely reason	What to try
"No favicon found" message	The site has none, blocks outside requests, or uses an unusual filename	Check the spelling, try the main domain, or use the page source method above
Only a tiny 16×16 icon	That's the only size the site publishes	Use it as it is, or ask the owner for the original artwork
Icon looks blurry	A small tile is being shown large	Pick the biggest tile or the SVG, and avoid stretching
Download opened in a new tab	The browser blocked a direct save	Right-click or long-press the image and choose save
Your own new favicon isn't showing	Browsers hold on to old icons	Hard-refresh, try a private window, and give it a day

Frequently Asked Questions

Is this favicon downloader free, and do I need to sign up?

It's completely free and there's nothing to sign up for. No account, no email address and no limit on lookups. It's a free favicon downloader online: type a domain and go.

How do I get a favicon from a URL?

Paste the address into the box at the top, press Grab icons, click the size you want and hit Download. A full link with a long path works too, because the tool keeps only the domain.

Can I download a favicon.ico file?

Yes. If the site serves one at its standard address, a tile labelled favicon.ico appears and Download saves it with the .ico ending. Some ICO files carry several sizes inside, and the details line lists them when it can read the file.

Why do different sites show different sizes?

Each site publishes only the sizes its owner made. Google's favicon service returns the closest sizes it has stored, so a site with a single small icon gives you a single small tile. The tool shows what exists and doesn't invent the rest.

What is an Apple touch icon, and can I download it?

It's the larger icon, usually 180×180 pixels, that iPhones and iPads use when someone adds a site to their home screen. The tool checks for apple-touch-icon.png at the site's address and shows it as an Apple touch tile when it finds one, so it works as a quick Apple touch icon downloader for sites that use the standard filename.

Can I download favicons in bulk?

This page checks one site at a time rather than acting as a bulk favicon downloader for hundreds of domains at once. The favicon pack bundles every size of a single site into one zip, and your recent searches appear as chips so you can work through a short list quickly.

Should I choose ICO, PNG or SVG?

For a website, offer an SVG or PNG as the main icon with an ICO as a fallback. For a slide or mock-up, take the largest PNG or the SVG. For an iPhone home screen you need a 180×180 PNG.

Is it legal to use another site's favicon?

Favicons are usually a company's logo, so they're protected by copyright and often by trademark. Using one to refer to that site is common practice, but using it as your own branding or to suggest an endorsement isn't okay. This is general information, not legal advice, so for commercial use check with the owner or a solicitor.

Why is the icon I downloaded blurry?

Usually the tile you picked is small and has been stretched. A 16×16 image has only 256 pixels to work with. Choose a larger tile, use the SVG if there is one, or ask the site owner for the original artwork.

What's the difference between a favicon downloader and a favicon generator?

A downloader finds the icon a website already uses. A generator builds a new icon set from an image you supply. They solve opposite problems.

Does it work for any domain or subdomain?

It works for any public domain name, subdomains included, so you can get a favicon from any domain that's live on the internet. IP addresses, localhost and private network names can't be looked up.

Do you store the sites I look up?

The tool runs in your browser and doesn't save your lookups on our server. The last few sites you search are kept in your own browser's storage so the chips can show them, and clearing your site data removes them. The icons themselves are fetched from Google's favicon service and from the site you entered, so those services see the request, much as they would if you visited the site.

Add This Tool to Your Website

Want the favicon downloader on your own site, blog or intranet page? Copy the iframe below and paste it wherever your page editor lets you add custom HTML. It loads the live tool, so there's nothing for you to update.

If the tool looks cropped, or you can see extra space under it, change the height value. The #fgRoot at the end of the address simply scrolls the frame down to the tool itself. Looking for something else? Browse everything on our All Tools page.