Refresh favicon in bookmarks (Firefox)

Question

Few days ago, I've changed the favicon of my website: it works well when I open the website:

---

My website is also in my bookmarks, but it shows the old favicon:

I already had a look here, but answers did not solved my problem. The solution is probably very simple, but I have not found anything so far.

Thanks!

Labroid

Fix: Firefox Displaying the Wrong Bookmark Favicons - Appuals.com may help. – Foldboat

Answer 1

There is a solution that works on every browser:

• go to www.yourwebsiteurl.com/favicon.ico (works for localhost as well)

• force refresh (Ctrl+F5 for most browsers, or manually)

• restart the browser

Labroid

Non obvious case: I had HTTPS link bookmarked, but for this method to work I had to access HTTP link for favicon. – Once

Did not work for me, localhost using Firefox Developer Edition 78.0b5 (64 bits) – Dux

Be aware that sometimes the favicon is not stored at /favicon.ico. Check your page for a <link rel="shortcut icon"/> tag and navigate to the url it's pointing to before hard-refreshing. – Unhappy

It seems ridiculous, but this didn't work for me neither. Firefox 89.0.2 64 bit, Windows – Cobnut

Answer 2

In Firefox 56 on Windows I was able to refresh just a specific bookmark favicon as follows:

• Install sqlite-tools from https://www.sqlite.org/download.html
• Quit Firefox (close all open Firefox windows).
• At the command line, change into your profile directory. Mine was at %AppData%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\<profilename>.default.

• Open the favicon.sqlite database using sqlite3:

  sqlite3 favicons.sqlite
  

• Find the favicon(s) you want to remove:

  select * from moz_icons where icon_url like '%search_term_goes_here%';
  

• Delete them:

  delete from moz_icons where icon_url like '%search_term_goes_here%';
  

• Exit.

  .exit
  

• Start Firefox and visit the relevant pages. The favicon will be refreshed when you do this.

Bouchard

This worked for me, thanks. However I had to delete all entries for my domain (e.g. domain.com) to make the favicon refresh for a different context (domain.com/context). – Nalley

This was the only solution that worked for me. I found quitting firefox to be unnecessary. – Crayton

I did have to quit firefox or a database locked error occurred. For certain bad icons, I had to repeat the same "select" and "delete" commands on the table "moz_pages_w_icons" with column name "page_url" in the same "favicon.sqlite" database. (Firefox 66.0.4) – Hyperventilation

~/.mozilla/firefox/****.default-release/favicons.sqlite for Ubuntu – Sattler

You can use the GUI tool sqlitebrowser sqlitebrowser.org and open favicons.sqlite with it, get to the moz_icons table and easily update. Need to close Firefox otherwise it will say database is locked. – Tega

Answer 3

It's a bit hacky, but try changing the bookmark properties from http to https or vice versa, then clicking the bookmark. If you changed from http to https, just leave it after that. If you changed from https to http, change it back.

Delanty

Unfortunately this doesn't force a refresh on Firefox v61. – Farmland

Worked for me for a https page after changing it to http, clicking the link, changing it back to https and clicking the link again - FF 61.0.1(64bit) – Bawdy

Similarily one can just add a question mark to the url (if there is a questionmark already in the url, add an ampersand "&" at the end instead, be sure not to have two questionmarks in the url) – Esquibel

Worked for me in Firefox v75 – Luben

Answer 4

Windows

Go to C:\Users\ *your profile* \AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\ *random name*.default-*random #*

Delete file: favicons.sqlite

All bookmark favicons will be set to default and will refresh when your revisit the sites.

Tested on version 66.0.1 (64-bit) & 72.0.2 (64-bit)

Rf

In Ubuntu 18.04 (and probably most distros) using Firefox 67.0.3, my file is at /home/<username>/.mozilla/firefox/<random>.default – Glyphography

Firefox must be closed in order for the file to be deleted – Urbani

Can be used together with the Checkmarks extension, which will visit every page to load all favicons. You can find the extension in the sidebar once installed. – Erastian

Answer 5

I had the same issue and in my case, it worked by adding a slash after the url so the browser loads the page from ground up again.

https://www.example.com//

After clicking on the bookmark, the icon was updated immediately. The solution is from here (See method 2)

Mcgehee

That worked for me. And it is the easiest to remember :) Thanks – Footed

By far the simplest solution. Nothing else worked for me. – Rhineland

Answer 6

MAC OS

The favicon.ico format is pretty archaic now. Any solution to hack/trash/refesh a .ico file is rather pointless when the file may be a PNG. The head element of a page should tell you e.g. for a Drupal page <link rel="icon" href="/sites/default/files/YOUR-ICON.png" type="image/png" />

These Bookmark/History image files are so stubbornly cached, that on MacOS the best solution for me (because I'm comfortable with refreshing ALL icons again over time) is to quit Firefox, then trash the favicons.sqlite file found at

~USERHOMEFOLDER/Library/Application Support/Firefox/Profiles/XXXXXXXX.default/favicons.sqlite

The file will be regenerated when you reopen FF. Tabula rasa.

Softa

Answer 7

It might not work for everybody, but you should check the link you saved to see if it's the same URL as the one you end up on after clicking on it, because Firefox won't save icons for links that instantly redirect you. For instance, I saved Bootstrap's docs in my favorite bar with this link
https://getbootstrap.com/docs/5.2/
But when you click on in you get redirected to this link.
https://getbootstrap.com/docs/5.2/getting-started/introduction/
After changing the link in my bookmark to the second one it worked.

It's a bit of a rare situation and it might not help most people but I still believe I should post this.

Wealth

Answer 8

Press Ctrl + F5. This forces a page refresh while clearing the cache. Also, try deleting the bookmark and recreate it. The image is probably cached in different places for the bookmark and the tab. If that doesn't work, try the favicon addon here I also found this code for refreshing it. Paste it into your dev console:

var fS = Components.classes["@mozilla.org/browser/favicon-service;1"]
         .getService(Components.interfaces.nsIFaviconService);
fS.expireAllFavicons();

Kandykane

I've tried both before asking my question, it does not refresh my bookmark's favicon... :( Thanks anyway! – Labroid