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How to Add a Favicon to Your WordPress Blog

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Do you want to learn how to add a favicon in WordPress?

Favicon or Site Icon is the tiny image that appear next to your website title in the browser. It helps your users identify your website and more frequent visitors of your site will build an instant recognition for that tiny image.

This increases your brand recognition and helps you build trust among your audiences. In our article about most common WordPress mistakes, not adding a favicon was among the top 25.

In this article, we will show you how to add a favicon to your WordPress blog.

Why you should Add a Favicon to Your WordPress Site?

As we mentioned earlier that it establishes your website’s identity. However, it also improves your site’s usability and user experience. This image will help you understand it better:

Favicons in Browser Tabs

Most users usually have many tabs open in their browser window. This hides your website’s title as the number of tabs increase. The favicon helps user identify your website and quickly switch to the tab they want.

You can ask your users to add your site to their homescreen on mobile devices. Your site icon or favicon is also used when a user adds your site to their homescreen on a mobile device.

Site icon displayed as the app icon on the homescreen of a mobile device

How to Create a Favicon

You can use your brand’s logo as your site icon or favicon. The recommended size for your site icon image is at least 512 pixels in both width and height. The site icon image should be a square, you can use a larger rectangular image and WordPress will allow you to crop the image when you add it.

Creating a site icon for your WordPress blog using Adobe Photoshop

We recommend using an image editing program like Adobe Photoshop or Gimp to create a site icon of exactly 512×512 pixels. This way you can maintain exact proportions for your image. You can use transparent image or fill the image with a background color of your choice. This image could be in png, jpeg, or gif format.

Video Tutorial

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If you don’t like the video or need more instructions, then continue reading.

Adding Your Site Icon or Favicon in WordPress

Since WordPress 4.3, you can add a favicon or site icon from WordPress admin area. Simply go to Appearance » Customize and click on the ‘Site Identity’ tab.

Site identity in Customizer

The site identity section in the WordPress theme customizer allows you to change the site title, description, and control whether or not you want to display them in the header.

It also allows you to upload your site icon. Simply click on the select file button and then upload the image you want to use as site icon.

Adding site icon and favicon in WordPress

If the image you are uploading exceeds recommended size, then WordPress will allow you to crop it. If it matches the recommended size exactly, then you can just save your changes.

That’s all you can now preview your site and see your favicon in action. You can also visit your site on a mobile device and then from the browser menu select “Add to homescreen’. You will notice that your site icon will appear on the homescreen.

Pro Tip: if you’re trying to customize the SEO title that shows up next to the favicon, then you will need the free All in One SEO plugin. For more details, see our guide on how to install and set up AIOSEO.

Adding Favicon to Older WordPress (4.2 or below)

If you’re using an older version of WordPress or want to learn how to upload your favicon manually, then this step is for you.

First, you need add the favicon file to your website’s root directory using FTP or your WordPress hosting file manager.

After that you can simply paste this code into your theme’s header.php file.

<link rel="icon" href="https://www.wpbeginner.com/favicon.png" type="image/x-icon" />
<link rel="shortcut icon" href="https://www.wpbeginner.com/favicon.png" type="image/x-icon" />
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Make sure to replace wpbeginner.com with your site’s URL, and you are good to go.

If your theme does not have a header.php file, or you cannot find it, then don’t worry, we have a plugin for you. Simply install and activate the free Insert Headers and Footers plugin.

After activating the plugin go to Settings » Insert Headers and Footers and paste the code provided above in the header section to save your settings.

If you don’t want to deal with FTP at all, then you can also use the plugin called All in One Favicon.

We hope that this article helped you add favicon to your WordPress site. You may also want to see our ultimate WordPress SEO guide to improve your rankings or see our expert pick of the must have WordPress plugins to grow your website.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

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Reader Interactions

110 CommentsLeave a Reply

    • Our blob is a simple design of a face smiling using an exclamation point and parenthesis :)

      Reply

      Admin

    • You would normally want to clear your site’s cache as well as try setting the favicon again for a common reason.

      Reply

      Admin

  4. I’m new to this so would appreciate some guidance with favicon. The website I’m trying to look after needs the favicon changing. Can I load a new image as a favicon that will overwrite the favicon currently on the pages or must i delete the current one then load a new image?
    Thanks for any reply

    Reply

    • You would want to reach out to the support for your specific theme for if your theme has this option.

      Reply

      Admin

  5. I was fine on the video until you said “click on site identity”… there is no such tab on my version. The first option is “Global” then Header, Breadcrumb, UberMenu{main], Blog, etc. No “Site Identity”…so obviously without being to get to that screen I’m not going anywhere. Is there another way in?

    Reply

    • If your theme has different settings and you are unable to find the favicon in the customization settings, you would want to reach out to the support for your specific theme to see if they have it located in a theme-specific area.

      Reply

      Admin

  6. Hii Wpbeginner!
    I’m using Astra theme my website Favicon is working every one except Google search results. How can I fixed it?

    Reply

  10. Great ! I always go through from your tutorials when ever i get stuck in any kind of issue. Thanks for it.

    Reply

  11. Can’t Add a Favicon to Your WordPress Website? That was my problem. I did a fair bit of research where I finally found my issue. It was because the PHP GD Library was not enabled. Fortunately, I control my own server. I had upgraded the server PHP to v7.2 but I forgot to enable the PHP GD library. So…if you find when you try to add the site icon in the appearances section of your wordpress admin and the image you upload/select is not being accepted or you can’t use the crop image feature it is most likely because your webserver host has not enabled the GD Library.

    Reply

    • Thank you so much! You saved me a lot of frustration because I’m working on Xampp and it was disabled by default. Now wouldn’t it have been nice if they had mentioned it in the article.

      Reply

  12. Favicon of my website was visible before I changed DNS for Cloudflare. Now it is visible in the admin side but not on the website. How to solve this problem. you can check on my website

    Reply

  15. “When I go to the “Site Identity” tab, there is no place to upload a site icon. The only option I have is the “Site Title”. That’s ALL!
    I am using WordPress 4.7.3.”

    Reply

    • I guess, the WP theme you are using doesn’t have favicon implemented. So, if it is not declared in theme functions.php file, it won’t appear in admin/editor side.
      You can hardcode it to header.php or use third-part plugins.

      Reply

  16. Hi, I recently updated my website from HTTP to HTTPS and when that happened, the site icon stopped working. Does this mean that somewhere along the line I’ve missed a step? I’ve tried changing the image and reuploading a new one and that hasn’t worked. If someone types in the website URL using http then the old favicon (and not site icon) shows up, but the minute it’s https, then it disappears. The site icon though is visible when I’m logged into the dashboard.

    Reply

    • Eleanor
      I’m on HTTPS and I have the same issue, did you find a solution?
      Favicon only shows when I’m logged in in admin mode!

      Reply

  17. When I go to the “Site Identity” tab, there is no place to upload a site icon. The only option I have is the “Site Title”. That’s ALL!
    I am using WordPress 4.7.3.

    Please help!

    Reply

    • I guess, the WP theme you are using doesn’t have favicon implemented. So, if it is not declared in theme functions.php file, it won’t appear in admin/editor side.
      You can hardcode it to header.php or use third-part plugins.

      Reply

  19. Can anyone tell me how this new “Site Icon” feature is supposed to work? I get to the point where the file is uploaded and I get a dialog box that offers to crop the image. The problem is 1) my image doesn’t need to be cropped and 2) there’s no “Save” button (or “Done” or anything similar), only a “Crop” button and the upper right corner X to close the dialog. If I click “Crop” I get an error (Error cropping this image, bla bla bla) and if I hit the X it closes. Either way, my image is not saved as a Site Icon (even though it is saved in the media library. After deleting the image, resizing it to exactly 512×512, I upload it again. This time, no crop dialog, just the “Select” image dialog. I click select, the image has a box around it and a check mark and nothing else happens. No Save, etc. When I close the dialog, there’s still “No image selected.” This happens in Chrome AND Firefox. I’m ready to throw WordPress away and hand code everything. I haven’t used WordPress in a couple of years and I’m frustrated with what seems like buggy, poor design and feature bloat.

    Reply

  21. Why does it need to be 512 pixels for an icon? I’m hoping it’s converted somewhere inside WordPress, once and done, and not on every load. 512×512 is crazy for something that would very rarely be bigger than 32X32, unless I am missing something?

    Reply

  22. Article not useful. Everyone tells you to make a path to your favicon & that’s it.

    However do you include http: www http do you specify .ico .png?
    Nobody says anything in detail.

    Reply

  23. Using WP4.7 and the Site Icon functionality works, but it just seems off to me. The result is 4 links in the section:

    But it creates 10 different versions of the site icon image in addition to the original at sizes of 32×32, 100×100, 150×150, 180×180, 192×192, 250×250, 270×270, 300×300, 360×360, 500×310.

    Why so many cropped images if only 4 linked to?

    Also, I submit an icon image sized 512×512 as recommended, but the 500×310 version is always cropped so the top and bottom of the icon is cut off. Is there any way around this and/or is it a big deal?

    What browser support does this WP Site Icon cover (mostly in respect to how far back in IE)?

    Thanks!

    Reply

  24. In Whatsapp, the image which appears left to a link address if you send a link: is that the same icon? Because I don’t see it there.

    Reply

  25. The ICO Format plugin for Adobe Photoshop does not allow images more than 256 pixels high or wide. So how do you create one that’s 512px???

    Reply

    • It doesn’t need to be made an .ico. Just a plain .png or .lpg will do when you work in WordPress.

      Reply

  27. Kindly tell me any website or a software from where I can make an effective favicon for my site in a quick time????

    Reply

  28. Thank you for another simple to follow tutorial. I’m a true beginner and y’all do a great job explaining things in a way I can understand.

    Reply

  31. how come my side identity menu doesn’t have the service for site icon? I am so frustrated… can you help ?

    Reply

  32. Are the instructions you give here theme-specific? I’m using the Delicacy theme, and it doesn’t give me that option to alter Site Identity and insert a Favicon.

    Reply

      • Hi There, I also don’t see the site identity tab, I am using the sketch theme, how do I update a theme?

        Thanks in advance, Malcs

        Reply

        • i may go to theme custimztion..there u see the option of uploading the favicon icon easliy…

    • You might not see the word “favicon” probably site icon. If you see a scrow bar you might have to scrow all the way down to see the select image box.

      Reply

    • You can add favicon by WordPress’ “Costumize” editor, which can be found in every wordpress site.

      Reply

  33. I upload a PNG file that is exactly 512×512 pixels, WordPress saves it, and then I end up with a cropped image in my media library. Super annoying! WordPress 4.4.

    Reply

    • I should add that the new, cropped image is exactly the same dimensions as the original I uploaded, but now I have two in my library (albeit one has been processed twice, and has actually increased two kilobytes in file size!).

      Reply

  34. I have gone through the directory, exactly as you described, but my Site Identity tab only has “Site Title”, “Tagline”, and a checkbox for displaying header text. How can I fix that? Or do I have to go the FTP route?

    Thanks for the help!

    Reply

  40. Doesn’t work. When I got to Customize > Site Identity, the site icon option doesn’t show up – it only says “Site Title” and “Tagline”.

    Reply

  42. I added a 512×512 pixel jog image via Site Identity / Site Icon. The image appears just fine there. But the image does not appear as a favicon in any browser (Firefox, IE, or Chrome).

    Reply

  43. I’ve done all the steps. The image shoes in the customiser but not on the site on any platform…iphone or on my iMac in any of the browsers. Is there a specific file type?

    Reply

  44. Is this option to alter Site Identity and add the Favicon theme-specific? I don’t have that in my self-hosted site.

    Reply

  47. I am so glad to have stumbled upon your article. I had quit trying to figure out how to upload my favicon in the past because it felt impossible. But recently, I felt the need to take another stab at it. You made it so easy! I can’t recall it being this easy to upload before.

    Thank you!
    Nikki

    Reply

  48. Hello!

    I have a question, recently, I’ve used the plugin All in One Favicon. I uploaded my picture but it doesn’t show up if I’m not logged into WordPress, it just keeps on showing the HostGator favicon (regular), can anyone help?

    Reply

  49. Here’s a stupid question: Why do they make it so complicated? This should be something that you can do in a couple clicks, like adding an image to a blog post.

    Reply

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