Safari 12 is here with a feature we’ve all been waiting for: favicons. Here’s how to enable them on macOS and on your iPhone or iPad.
Favicons are little icons that represent websites, seen in the tabs of browsers like Chrome and Firefox. Apple long resisted using these icons in Safari, which made it hard to identify which tab is which, especially when you’ve got a lot of tabs open. Happily anyone using Safari 12 can enable favicons now.
On an iPhone or iPad head to the Settings app, then tap on Safari. You should find the option to “Show Icons in Tabs.”
Enable this setting and you should see favicons while browsing.
Mac users need to open Safari, then click Safari > Preferences in the menu bar. Head to the “Tabs” section, then make sure “Show website icons in tabs” is checked.
This is a welcome change. I’ve long argued that Mac users should ditch Chrome for Safari, but for many the lack of favicons was enough of a reason to stick with Chrome. There were a few third party hacks for the job, but they were glitchy. This official solution is much better.
