I'd like to use a single image as both a regular favicon and iPhone/iPad fr开发者_运维知识库iendly favicon.

Is this possible? Would an iPad-friendly 72×72 PNG scale if linked to as a regular browser favicon? Or do I have to use a separate 16×16 or 32×32 image?

Update for 2020: Sticking to the original question of 16x16 versus 32x32 icons: the current recommendation should be to provide a 32x32 icon, skipping 16x16 entirely. All current browsers and devices support 32x32 icons. The icon will routinely be upscaled to as much as 192x192 depending on the environment (assuming there are no larger sizes available or the system didn't recognize them). Upscaling from ultra low resolution has a noticeable effect so better stick to 32x32 as the smallest baseline.

For IE, Microsoft recommends 16x16, 32x32 and 48x48 packed in the favicon.ico file.

For iOS, Apple recommends specific file names and resolutions, at most 180x180 for latest devices running iOS 8.

Android Chrome primarily uses a manifest and also relies on the Apple touch icon.

IE 10 on Windows 8.0 requires PNG pictures and a background color and IE 11 on Windows 8.1 and 10 accepts several PNG pictures declared in a dedicated XML file called browserconfig.xml.

Safari for Mac OS X El Capitan introduces an SVG icon for pinned tabs.

Some other platforms look for PNG files with various resolutions, like the 96x96 picture for Google TV or the 228x228 picture for Opera Coast.

Look at this favicon pictures list for a complete reference.

TLDR: This favicon generator can generate all these files at once. The generator can also be implemented as a WordPress plugin. Full disclosure: I am the author of this site.

Short answer

The favicon is supposed to be a set of 16x16, 32x32 and 48x48 pictures in ICO format. ICO format is different than PNG. Non-square pictures are not supported.

To generate the favicon, for many reasons explained below, I advise you to use this favicon generator. Full disclosure: I'm the author of this site.

Long, comprehensive answer

Favicon must be square. Desktop browsers and Apple iOS do not support non-square icons.

The favicon is supported by several files:

A favicon.ico icon.
Some other PNG icons.

In order to get the best results across desktop browsers (Windows/IE, MacOS/Safari, etc.), you need to combine both types of icons.

`favicon.ico`

Although all desktop browsers can deal with this icon, it is primarily for older version of IE.

The ICO format is different of the PNG format. This point is tricky because some browsers are smart enough to process a PNG picture correctly, even when it was wrongly renamed with an ICO extension.

An ICO file can contain several pictures and Microsoft recommends to put 16x16, 32x32 and 48x48 versions of the icon in favicon.ico. For example, IE will use the 16x16 version for the address bar, and the 32x32 for a task bar shortcut.

Declare the favicon with:

<link rel="icon" href="/path/to/icons/favicon.ico">

However, it is recommended to place favicon.ico in the root directory of the web site and to not declare it at all and let the modern browsers pick the PNG icons.

PNG icons

Modern desktop browsers (IE11, recent versions of Chrome, Firefox...) prefer to use PNG icons. The usual expected sizes are 16x16, 32x32 and "as big as possible". For example, MacOS/Safari uses the 196x196 icon if it is the biggest it can find.

What are the recommended sizes? Pick your favorite platforms:

Most desktop browsers: 16x16, 32x32, "as big as possible"
Android Chrome: 192x192
Google TV: 96x96
... and others that are more or less documented.

The PNG icons are declared with:

<link rel="icon" type="image/png" href="/path/to/icons/favicon-16x16.png" sizes="16x16">
<link rel="icon" type="image/png" href="/path/to/icons/favicon-32x32.png" sizes="32x32">
...

Beware: Firefox does not support the sizes attribute and uses the last PNG icon it finds. Make sure to declare the 32x32 picture last: it is good enough for Firefox, and that will prevent it from downloading a big picture it does not need. edit: fixed in 2016.

~~Also note that Chrome does not support the sizes attribute and tends to load all declared icons. Better not declare too many icons.~~ edit: fixed in 2018.

Mobile platforms

This question is about desktop favicon so there is no need to delve too much in this topic.

Apple defines touch icon for the iOS platform. iOS does not support non-square icon. It simply rescales non-square pictures to make them square (look for the Kioskea example).

Android Chrome relies on the Apple touch icon and also defines a 192x192 PNG icon.

Microsoft defines the tile picture and the browserconfig.xml file.

Conclusion

Generating a favicon that works everywhere is quite complex. I advise you to use this favicon generator. Full disclosure: I'm the author of this site.

I don't see any up to date info listed here, so here goes:

To answer this question now, 2 favicons will not do it if you want your icon to look great everywhere. See the sizes below:

16 x 16 – Standard size for browsers
24 x 24 – IE9 pinned site size for user interface
32 x 32 – IE new page tab, Windows 7+ taskbar button, Safari Reading List sidebar
48 x 48 – Windows site
57 x 57 – iPod touch, iPhone up to 3G
60 x 60 – iPhone touch up to iOS7
64 x 64 – Windows site, Safari Reader List sidebar in HiDPI/Retina
70 x 70 – Win 8.1 Metro tile
72 x 72 – iPad touch up to iOS6
76 x 76 – iOS7
96 x 96 – GoogleTV
114 x 114 – iPhone retina touch up to iOS6
120 x 120 – iPhone retina touch iOS7
128 x 128 – Chrome Web Store app, Android
144 x 144 – IE10 Metro tile for pinned site, iPad retina up to iOS6
150 x 150 – Win 8.1 Metro tile
152 x 152 – iPad retina touch iOS7
196 x 196 – Android Chrome
310 x 150 – Win 8.1 wide Metro tile
310 x 310 – Win 8.1 Metro tile

2021 standards thanks to faviconit

I use faviconit.com for the best browser and device support possible. You upload an image and this site gives you the code, the converted images and a browserconfig file.

We could simply upload a favicon manually to our website of 16x16 and it will probably show up in almost any browser.

But when you will mark it as one of your favorites on your smartphone or tablet, we will need larger images (60x60 to 144x144).

And lets say one of our users creates a shortcut on their desktop. In that case a 196x196 looks better!

Example code of what faviconit would give you, next to all the converted images:

<!-- place this in your <head></head> -->
<link rel="shortcut icon" href="/favicon.ico">
<link rel="icon" sizes="16x16 32x32 64x64" href="/favicon.ico">
<link rel="icon" type="image/png" sizes="196x196" href="/favicon-192.png">
<link rel="icon" type="image/png" sizes="160x160" href="/favicon-160.png">
<link rel="icon" type="image/png" sizes="96x96" href="/favicon-96.png">
<link rel="icon" type="image/png" sizes="64x64" href="/favicon-64.png">
<link rel="icon" type="image/png" sizes="32x32" href="/favicon-32.png">
<link rel="icon" type="image/png" sizes="16x16" href="/favicon-16.png">
<link rel="apple-touch-icon" href="/favicon-57.png">
<link rel="apple-touch-icon" sizes="114x114" href="/favicon-114.png">
<link rel="apple-touch-icon" sizes="72x72" href="/favicon-72.png">
<link rel="apple-touch-icon" sizes="144x144" href="/favicon-144.png">
<link rel="apple-touch-icon" sizes="60x60" href="/favicon-60.png">
<link rel="apple-touch-icon" sizes="120x120" href="/favicon-120.png">
<link rel="apple-touch-icon" sizes="76x76" href="/favicon-76.png">
<link rel="apple-touch-icon" sizes="152x152" href="/favicon-152.png">
<link rel="apple-touch-icon" sizes="180x180" href="/favicon-180.png">

Since Windows 8

But that is not all. Since windows 8 we are able to create shortcuts to websites with tiles!

<!-- place this in your <head></head> -->
<meta name="msapplication-TileColor" content="#FFFFFF">
<meta name="msapplication-TileImage" content="/favicon-144.png">
<meta name="msapplication-config" content="/browserconfig.xml">

Browserconfig.xml

Upload a file named browserconfig.xml (to enable the tiles in windows >8)

<browserconfig>
    <msapplication>
        <tile>
            <square70x70logo src="/favicon-70.png"/>
            <square150x150logo src="/favicon-150.png"/>
            <square310x310logo src="/favicon-310.png"/>
            <TileColor>#FFFFFF</TileColor>
        </tile>
    </msapplication>
</browserconfig>

16x16 pixels, *.ico format.

I am not sure if/how browsers scale large icons, but The W3C suggests the following¹:

The format for the image you have chosen must be 16x16 pixels or 32x32 pixels, using either 8-bit or 24-bit colors. The format of the image must be one of PNG (a W3C standard), GIF, or ICO.

¹ w3c.org: How to Add a Favicon to your Site (Draft in development).

Actually, to make your favicon work in all browsers properly, you will have to add more than 10 files in the correct sizes and formats.

My friend and I have created an App just for this! you can find it in faviconit.com

We did this, so people don't have to create all these images and the correct tags by hand, create all of them used to annoy me a lot!

The simplest solution (2021)

Use one(!) SVG image

If you do not care about supporting Safari, you can use a single SVG icon:

<link rel="icon" href="favicon.svg" type="image/svg+xml" sizes="any">

Use one(!) PNG image

If you want full support*, you should add this to the head of your document:

<link rel="shortcut icon" type="image/png" href="/img/icon-192x192.png">
<link rel="shortcut icon" sizes="192x192" href="/img/icon-192x192.png">
<link rel="apple-touch-icon" href="/img/icon-192x192.png">

The last link is for Apple (home screen), the second one for Android (home screen) and the first one for the rest.

The size is exactly the size the Android home screen uses. The Apple home screen icon size is 60px (3x), so 180px and will be scaled down. Other platforms use the default shortcut icon, which will be scaled down too.

*Note that this solution does not support "tiles" in Windows 8/10. It does, however, support images in shortcuts, bookmarks and browser-tabs.

Wikipedia has this to say:

Additionally, such icon files can be either 16×16 or 32×32 pixels in size, and either 8-bit or 24-bit in color depth (note that GIF files have a limited, 256 color palette entries).

I think the best way is to use a 32x32 gif and test it with different browsers.

Simple solution for modern browsers (2022)

Use an SVG favicon:

<link rel="icon" href="/icon.svg">

Supported by major browsers (except Safari in 2021) and Living Standard
Only 1 short line of code and simple to remember
Other attributes like type and sizes are not necessary
Scales much better at any size compared to PNG
Let's end the favicon craziness with hundreds of different sizes...

You can have multiple sizes of icons in the same file. I routinely create favicons (.ico file) that are 48, 32, and 16 pixels. You can add in any size image you want. The question is, will the iPhone use an ico file?

ico also supports transparency, but I'm not sure if it's an alpha channel like PNG; probably more like GIF where it's on or it's off.

According to the Wikipedia Article on Favicon, Internet Explorer supports only the ICO format for favicons.

I would stick with two different icons.

As I learned, no one of those several solutions are perfects. Using a favicon generator is indeed a good solution but their number is overwhelming and it's hard to choose. I d'like to add that if you want your website to be PWA enabled, you need to provide also a 512x512 icon as stated by Google Devs :

icons including a 192px and a 512px version

I didn't met a lot of favicon generators enforcing that criteria (firebase does, but there is a lot of things it doesn't do). So the solution must be a mix of many other solutions.

I don't know, today at the begining of 2020 if providing a 16x16, 32x32 still relevant. I guess it still matters in certain context like, for example, if your users still use IE for some reason (this stills happen in some privates companies which doesn't migrate to a newer browser for some reasons)

No, you can't use a non-standard size or dimension, as it'd wreak havoc on peoples' browsers wherever the icons are displayed. You could make it 12x16 (with four pixels of white/transparent padding on the 12 pixel side) to preserve your aspect ratio, but you can't go bigger (well, you can, but the browser'll shrink it).

You will need separate files for each resolution I am afraid. There is a really good article on campaign monitor describing how they created and implemented their icons for each iOS device too:

http://www.campaignmonitor.com/blog/post/3234/designing-campaign-monitor-ios-icons/

The format of favicon must be square otherwise the browser will stretch it. Unfortunatelly, Internet Explorer < 11 do not support .gif, or .png filetypes, but only Microsoft's .ico format. You can use some "favicon generator" app like: http://favicon-generator.org/

favicon.ico is 16x16

<link rel="shortcut icon" href="favicon.ico"/>

And I use these ones to be beautiful in mobile and tablet:

<link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="144x144" href="img/ico144.png">
<link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="114x114" href="img/ico114.png">
<link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="72x72" href="img/ico72.png">
<link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" href="img/ico57.png">

It's important to use the name "favicon.ico" in the root because many browsers will try to find there first.

Seems like your file should be .ico type.

Check this post about favicons:

http://www.html-kit.com/support/favicon/image-size/

the format for the image you have chosen must be 16x16 pixels or 32x32 pixels, using either 8-bit or 24-bit colors. The format of the image must be one of PNG (a W3C standard), GIF, or ICO. - How to Add a Favicon to your Site - QA @ W3C

The favicon doesn't have to be 16x16 or 32x32. You can create a favicon that is 80x80 or 100x100, just make sure that both values are the same size, and obviously don't make it too large or too small, choose a reasonable size.

May I remind everybody that the question was:

I'd like to use a single image as both a regular favicon and iPhone/iPad friendly favicon? Is this possible? Would an iPad-friendly 72x72 PNG scale if linked to as a regular browser favicon? Or do I have to use a separate 16x16 or 32x32 image?

The answer is: YES, that is possible! YES, it will be scaled. NO, you do not need a 'regular browser favicon'. Please look at this answer: https://stackoverflow.com/a/48646940/2397550