Changing Favicon in SharePoint 2010

What is Favicon?

All the top websites in the internet will have their favicon in the address bar. Similarly SharePoint 2010 sites also have its favicon in the address bar as shown below:

What is the use of Favicon?

When we are saving a site as a favorite then this icon will be saved for the reference with the site name starting in the favorites bar in any web browser. For example: Take Google you will see the Google symbol in the address bar. 

How to create Favicon (.ico file)?
I have used this website http://www.coolutils.com/online/image-converter/ for converting the image to .ico file which is favicon file. You can upload your company’s logo and convert it into .ico file in the mentioned site and download it from the site. (You can use any free convertors site online to create the icon file) 

How to set Favicon in the SharePoint 2010 site?

SharePoint 2010 displays an orange Favicon and it is present in the following folder C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14\TEMPLATE\IMAGES\favicon.ico 

It will look like as follows:

Now, navigate to the above path and search for favicon.ico and rename the file to FaviconBackup.ico.

Now copy your favicon (.ico file) to this folder and make sure it is named as "favicon.ico".

Now refresh your SharePoint site and you will see the new favicon displayed in the address bar.

How to display different Favicons for different sites in the server farm?

The only way is we will change the favicon in the master page inorder to set different favicons for different sites.

Hence, edit the V4.master page file in the SharePoint designer and check out the file and look for the following in the code view:

<SharePoint:SPShortcutIcon runat="server" IconUrl="/_layouts/images/favicon.ico"/>

Now,upload the favicon file in the image library or store the file with different name in this folder. C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14\TEMPLATE\IMAGES\newfavicon.ico
<SharePoint:SPShortcutIcon runat="server" IconUrl="/_layouts/images/ newfavicon.ico "/>

Give thenew URL in the tag and save the master page and check in the file. 

Refresh the SharePoint page and now you can set the different favicon for more than one site in the SP farm.


To know about creating FAVICON for WSS 3.0 and MOSS 2007 read this article.