Free tool
Free favicon checker
Paste a URL. See if favicon.ico, apple-touch-icon, and icon link tags resolve. Free companion to the OG image checker. No signup.
What the checker looks at
A tab icon is not the Open Graph image. Social networks build the share card from og:image. The browser tab, bookmarks, and the iOS home screen use a different set of files. Launch pages often get the card right and still show a letter or a globe in the tab because no icon file resolves.
Three places cover almost every client. A link tag with rel="icon" points at a PNG or SVG. /favicon.ico is the old default path browsers still request when they want a fallback. apple-touch-icon is what iOS uses when someone adds the site to the home screen. A mask-icon is optional and only matters for Safari pinned tabs. This checker reads those link tags from the page you paste and always requests /favicon.ico on the same origin, even when the HTML never mentions it.
Each candidate is requested over public http or https. The row shows the HTTP status and the Content-Type header from that response. Declared sizes are copied from the sizes attribute when the tag has one. Pixels in the file are read from the image header when that header includes a width and height. If the attribute is missing and the file header has no dimensions, the row says unknown. The checker does not guess a size from the filename, from a typical chart, or from the words apple-touch-icon.
A useful result is HTTP 200 with an image Content-Type, such as image/png, image/x-icon, image/vnd.microsoft.icon, or image/svg+xml. HTTP 404 means that path is missing. text/html on an icon URL usually means the host returned a web page instead of a file, which happens when an app rewrites every path to its index page. A data URI is listed and not requested, so it has no status code. Host the icon at an https URL if you want a status.
Relative hrefs are resolved against the final page URL before the request. Private hosts, localhost, and link-local addresses are refused. Redirects stop after three hops. Nothing you paste is stored.
A practical set is a PNG or SVG on rel="icon", a real file at /favicon.ico, and a 180×180 PNG on rel="apple-touch-icon". Those are the usual files people ship. They are not a measurement of your site. The table only fills a pixel size when your HTML declares it or the file itself contains one. After you fix a file, deploy and paste the URL again.
Questions
What does this favicon checker look at?
It fetches the page you paste, reads link tags with rel icon, shortcut icon, apple-touch-icon, apple-touch-icon-precomposed, and mask-icon, and always requests /favicon.ico on that site's origin. Each candidate gets the HTTP status and Content-Type from the response. Pixel sizes are shown only when the HTML sizes attribute declares them, or when the file header actually contains a width and height.
Why check /favicon.ico if I already have a link tag?
Browsers use the icon link when it is present, and they still request /favicon.ico on many visits. A missing file turns into a 404 and leaves older clients with no tab icon. The checker requests that path even when your HTML never mentions it.
What is an apple-touch-icon?
It is the image iOS uses when someone adds your site to their home screen. Add a link tag with rel apple-touch-icon pointing at a PNG. A 180×180 PNG is the usual file. If the tag is missing, the home-screen icon falls back to a screenshot or a smaller favicon.
The checker says the size is unknown. Is the icon broken?
Unknown means this response did not include a size we could read. SVG files often have no pixel size in the header, and some servers send an icon without dimensions in the bytes we downloaded. The status code and Content-Type are the pass or fail. A size is filled in only when it is declared in the sizes attribute or present in the file.
Does this store the URL, and how is it different from the OG image checker?
The URL is not saved. The page and icon files are fetched to read status codes, then the result stays in your browser. The OG image checker at /tools/og-image-checker reads the social card. This one reads the small icons in the browser tab and on Apple home screens. A page can have a correct social image and still ship no favicon.
Launching soon? List it on Sidehunt
Once the tab icon and the social card both resolve, put the product in front of people who try new tools every week. Free, nofollow, and premium launches are listed on pricing.
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