A favicon is the small website logo you see in your browser tab. The ability to see favicons for websites in Safari is convenient. It lets you spot the site you want at a glance by seeing just the icon on your tab, in your bookmark list, and in your history.
But have you ever noticed favicons that go missing or are incorrect, showing the wrong icon? You can “refresh” the website favicons in Safari on Mac in just a few steps, and here, we’ll show you how.
Delete Safari’s favicon cache
If you’re experiencing favicons that aren’t right, maybe they have icons for different websites; clearing the cache and starting over is a good option. Here’s how to do that:
1) Close and quit Safari.
2) Using Finder, click Go > Go to Folder from the menu bar
3) Enter ~/Library/Safari/Favicon Cache/ in the pop-up window and go to this location.
4) Select all items in the cache folder and move them to the Trash. You can select all with the keyboard shortcut Command + A and then drag them to your Trash or right-click and pick Move to Trash.
5) Empty your Trash or delete those items from it. (For help with both options, check out our tutorial on How to Empty Trash on Mac.)
6) Open Safari.
The Safari favicon cache folder will rebuild itself as you visit websites. And you’ll need to visit the sites you have saved for the favicons to appear. But those that were incorrect or missing should show up correctly.
Related: How to skip the Trash and delete files on Mac immediately
Alternative option
If you’d rather try something else, there is one other option that may or may not work.
Open the website with the incorrect favicon in a private window in Safari. You can do this easily by right-clicking Safari in your Dock and selecting New Private Window or selecting File > New Private Window from the menu bar.
Visit the website in the private window, and when you return to your non-private Safari, the favicon may be correct.
The suggestion comes from the Apple Community Forum. This method did not work for the user with the question, nor did it work for me; however, it’s worth a try if you’d like.
Enabling favicons in Safari
As a reminder, you can enable favicons in Safari on older versions of macOS by following these simple steps:
1) With Safari open, click Safari > Preferences from the menu bar.
2) Select the Tabs tab.
3) Check the box for Show website icons in tabs to enable favicons.
Hopefully, either rebuilding the Safari favicon cache or opening a specific site in a private window works for you. And if you have another method to refresh favicons in Safari that works for you, please share it in the comments below!
Useful Safari tips: