How to Test & Check Your Favicon (Free Checker)

Across Chrome, Safari, Firefox, iOS, and Android — automated and by hand.

Why bother testing?: Favicons fail silently. A missing apple-touch-icon or a broken manifest path won't throw an error — your branding just disappears on the surfaces you can't see from your own desk. Testing catches those gaps before your users do.

The fast way — automated scan

Paste your URL into a favicon checker and it fetches the live page, parses the , lists every icon tag, and flags what's missing or broken across desktop, Apple, Android, and manifest surfaces. It's the one check that covers everything at once.

The order to check in

Run an automated scan — Scan your live URL to list every favicon tag and flag missing or broken icons.

Check the browser tab — Hard-refresh and confirm the icon renders crisply in the tab on desktop browsers.

Check bookmarks and the address bar — Bookmark the page to confirm the 16x16 icon is legible in compact contexts.

Check iOS and Android home screens — Add to home screen on iOS and install the PWA on Android to verify the apple-touch-icon and the manifest icons.

Check the search-result favicon — Confirm the icon Google shows next to your result is the current one.

The manual checklist

Surface | What to do
Browser tab | Hard-refresh (Cmd+Shift+R / Ctrl+F5) in Chrome, Safari, and Firefox. The icon should be crisp, not blurry or pixelated, at 16-32px.
Bookmarks & address bar | Bookmark the page. This surfaces the 16x16 icon in its tightest context — if it's unreadable here, simplify the artwork.
iOS — Add to Home Screen | In Safari, share → Add to Home Screen. iOS uses the apple-touch-icon, not favicon.ico, so this catches a whole class of missing tags.
Android / PWA install | On Android Chrome, install the app. The home-screen and splash icons come from manifest.json, so this verifies your manifest icons resolve.
Google search result | Search your brand and confirm the favicon beside your result is current. Google needs at least a 48x48 icon and refreshes on recrawl.

The sizes each check exercises

16x16

32x32

48x48

180x180

192x192

Rendered at true pixel dimensions. 16px is the tab and the bookmark, 32px the retina tab, 48px the smallest icon Google will use, 180px the iOS home screen, and 192px the Android launcher.

Note: More on the mobile surfaces: the apple-touch-icon glossary entry, and why manifest.json matters.

What full coverage looks like

A complete favicon set covers browser tabs, bookmarks, search, iOS, Android, Windows tiles, and the PWA manifest. If your scan shows gaps, that's missing branding — read why favicon coverage matters, and check the full favicon sizes reference.

Found a gap?: If an icon is broken or stale, fix it with favicon not showing or updating. If it's simply missing, generate the missing sizes.

Frequently asked questions

How do I check if my favicon is working?

Run an automated favicon scan of your live URL to confirm every tag resolves, then manually verify the icon in a browser tab, a bookmark, on an iOS home screen, and in an installed PWA.

How do I preview a favicon before going live?

Most generators show a live tab preview as you design. To validate the real files, open each icon URL directly and confirm the size and format match what your link tags reference.

Why is my favicon different in Google search than in the browser?

Google caches the favicon from its last crawl and requires at least a 48x48 icon. The browser shows your current file immediately, while search updates only after Google recrawls.