IE Favorites

January 9, 2004 6:31 AM

Why do IE favicons stop appearing? I'll bookmark a site, and for a while it will have its nifty little favicon next to it in the Favorites menu of the browser, then POOF!, it's gone. (Please don't bother with answers like "Switch to Mozilla" or "Microsoft sucks!", I'm curious to know why this happens, I'm not soliciting opinions)
posted by briank to Computers & Internet (13 answers total)

Cache files are deleted automatically when history is cleared: "days to keep pages in history". Also happens when you delete "temporary internet files."
posted by MzB at 6:54 AM on January 9, 2004

So, presumably, I could save off the favicons elsewhere and have them be more permanent like other icons?
posted by briank at 7:31 AM on January 9, 2004

Yes, if you have the favicon saved somewhere, you can go to "Organize favorites," right click on the bookmark, select "Properties" --> "Change Icon."
posted by transient at 7:46 AM on January 9, 2004

How cheery! Thank you both.
posted by briank at 7:47 AM on January 9, 2004

Amusingly, Firebird is broken in respect to this. It stores the favicons in the normally cache, so eventually they age off and disappear if you don't go back to the site. And they disappear if you clear the cache.
posted by smackfu at 7:51 AM on January 9, 2004

whew, finally found it

Here is a utility called FavOrg that will look through your favorites list and then go to the websites and download each favicon.ico file and save them off so they don't get lost when they disappear from your cached file folder.
posted by internal at 8:44 AM on January 9, 2004

FavOrg is an official "PCMag" utility, and as such requires a $15 annual subscription fee to download. Drats.
posted by luser at 9:06 AM on January 9, 2004

Errr, related question: How do you MAKE favicons? I'd like one for my site, and I'm curious how it's done. Sorry if this is a derail.
posted by Happydaz at 9:16 AM on January 9, 2004

Happydaz: Check out PhotoMatt's How to Create a Favicon.
posted by LeiaS at 9:20 AM on January 9, 2004

Non-PCMag free FavOrg download (site is German)
posted by mookieproof at 9:26 AM on January 9, 2004

luser:

Another place to d/l for free.
posted by internal at 9:33 AM on January 9, 2004

Got it. Turns out AxMe has no favicon!!!
posted by luser at 9:41 AM on January 9, 2004

Erm ... does FavOrg work on ie6? I've scanned and everything, but the icons do not appear in my favourites. Have I missed something?
posted by feelinglistless at 9:54 AM on January 10, 2004