How to Enable Favicon in Safari macOS and iOS?

Favicon is the small site icon shown on the browser’s tab. The purpose of this icon is to help users quickly identify the browser tab they need using the small brand icon image. This is very useful especially when you work have multiple tabs opened on the browser. Most of the browsers like Chrome and Firefox shows favicon while Safari being the exception.

Safari does not show favicon on the tabs till macOS High Sierra and till iOS 11. Apple brings lot of exciting features in macOS Mojave and iOS 12 including showing favicon on Safari tabs.

Show Favicon in Safari macOS

Ensure to update your operating system to macOS Mojave or later and follow the below instructions.

Step1: Open Safari browser and go to ‘Safari > Preferences…’ menu. You can also press ‘Command + ,’ shortcut keys to open Safari preferences dialog box.

Step2: Go to ‘Tabs’ section and enable ‘Show website icons in tabs’ option.

Step3: That’s all!!! You have enabled favicon in macOS Safari. Now open any websites and see that Safari shows the small website icon on the browser tabs similar to other browsers.

Show Favicon in Safari iOS

First ensure that you have iOS 12 or later on your iPhone or iPad and follow the below steps.

Step1: Tap on ‘Settings’ app on your home screen dock.

Step2: Swipe the screen down to open the search box and type ‘Safari’. Tap on the ‘Safari’ app from the search results.

Step3: You will lots of customization option for Safari browser on your iPhone or iPad. Turn on the slider against the option ‘Show Icons in Tabs’ and enable it.

Step4: Now that you have enabled favicon in iOS Safari. But you will not see website icon on the browser tab on iPhone / iPad like Mac Safari. Since the screen size is limited, mobile browsers don’t show favicon on browser tab. In order to see the favicons, open any website and then tap on the ‘Open New Tab’ button on the lower right corner.

Step5: Tap on ‘+’ icon to open multiple tabs. When you have multiple tabs opened on Safari, you can view all the tabs are showing small website icons like below:

Showing favicon in Safari is useful in macOS, but may not much useful on iOS devices.