How to Change Favicon in SharePoint 2013 / 2016?

Favicon – short form for “Favorites Icon” adds branding to SharePoint 2013 sites. It’s used not only for bookmarking Favourites but also in the address bar and browser icon locations. In case you want to change the favicon in SharePoint 2013, here are the options.

SharePoint 2013 favicon location:
By default, SharePoint 2013 uses favicon located in path “C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\15\template\images”, which is mapped as “/_layouts/15/images/favicon.ico”, favicon size is 16×16 pixels.

Add favicon to SharePoint 2016

To add the favicon to SharePoint 2016 sites,

1. Login to your SharePoint Foundation/Server WFE. Upload your custom favicon to 15 hive’s images folder. If you have multiple WFEs, you must upload them to all of your web front ends.
2. Edit your master page (on publishing sites, edit your HTML master page) and locate the following chunk: <SharePoint:SPShortcutIcon runat=”server” IconUrl=”/_layouts/15/images/favicon.ico?rev=23″ /> In publishing sites that uses HTML master pages, it’s coded as: <!–SPM:<SharePoint:SPShortcutIcon runat=”server” IconUrl=”/_layouts/15/images/favicon.ico?rev=23″/>–>
3. Just change the IconUrl value to point to your custom icon. In my case, I’ve uploaded a custom icon “cloud.ico” and made the change as:

   <SharePoint:SPShortcutIcon runat="server" IconUrl="/_layouts/15/images/cloud.ico?rev=25"/>  

   Please note, I’ve increased the REV parameter from 23 to 25 to mitigate caching issue.

4. Save, approve and publish your master page. Here is my custom favicon!

How about changing favicon in SharePoint Online?

If you are working in SharePoint Online version or if you don’t have server access to upload your custom icon to 15 hive, place the custom favicon in any library such as “Images”, “Site Assets”, etc. and update the master page as: E.g.

<!--SPM:<SharePoint:SPShortcutIcon runat="server" IconUrl="https://sharepoint.crescent.com/sites/operations/PublishingImages/fav.ico"/>-->

Replace favicon in SharePoint 2013:
Although replacing the default Favicon.ico located in 15 hive with your custom favicon is fairly straightforward, it’s not a best practice! Always edit your master page to replace the favicon in SharePoint 2013.

Favicon may not be showing immediately?
Well, usually, it takes a few hits for the new icon to refresh. Try clearing your browser cache, IISReset, if favicon is still not updated.

To change the favicon for SharePoint 2007 and SharePoint 2010, refer to my another article: Set favicon for MOSS 2007, SharePoint 2010 sites