Safari Favorite Favicons

[JasonCManley]

Hello,

I've been meaning to ask this for a number of years and just never did. Today is the day.

I would like to understand why MacOS Safari doesn't display the correct Favicon for Favorites? Some are more preferable in one view while others are preferable in the other view. There's no consistency. Also, some sites just show up with the first letter.

I've searched this issue before and tried to understand the complexities of the coding within MacOS and why all of this happens, but I'm hoping someone can maybe explain it to me like I'm a toddler.

Is there some easy Terminal Command to fix this?

Thanks.

For example, here are my 'Search Bar Dropdown' Favorites:

Here is are my 'Sidebar' Favorites:

 

[Starfia]

Safari's always been something of an outlier in the way it handles interface display assets. Indeed, generally, the "not-in-the-actual-web-page" part of the browser is something that isn't really defined in Web standards, so browsers all make their own choices about what to do there.

• "Favorites" icons on the start page: it looks like Safari looks for a page's "Apple Touch Icon" (defined using a tag such as `<link rel="apple-touch-icon">`). It might also check for traditional favicons in their absence, but a couple of tests make me doubt it. Favicons are, however, displayed in places like Safari's "History" and "Bookmarks" menus.

• Sidebar icons: it looks like Safari checks for the social media image on a page (defined using a tag such as `<meta property="og:image">`) – this is what would normally appear on Facebook, Twitter, Mastodon, and so on, when sharing a link to an article there, for example. It seems bizarre since the allotted space is also a small square, but that does seem to be what it's doing.

The sidebar bookmarks interface changed a lot with Tahoe, and I personally think it just looks odder and more cluttered than it previously did. I'd be ready to hear this was all improved for Safari 27.