What is a favicon? The tiny icon behind bookmark separators

A favicon is the small square icon that sits next to a page's name: on the tab, on your bookmarks bar, in your history. The word is short for favorite icon. It is easy to overlook, but it also happens to be the whole trick behind Diviide: a separator is just a bookmark whose favicon is the divider. Here is how that works.

Where favicons show up

Favicons appear anywhere your browser lists pages by name: on every open tab, next to each bookmark on your bookmarks bar, in your history, and in the suggestions that drop down from the address bar. They are the internet's smallest logos, and you scan dozens of them a day without noticing.

They matter most on the bookmarks bar, where space is scarce. Edit a bookmark and clear its name, and the favicon is all that remains: a one-icon bookmark that takes a fraction of the space. Do that a few times and your bar stops being a wall of text. See how to edit bookmarks for that trick.

Where a favicon comes from

Each website provides its own favicon, a small image the site serves alongside its pages. Your browser picks it up when you visit, then keeps a copy so it can show the icon instantly next time. That saved copy is tied to the exact address you visited.

The catch is that your browser only saves the icon after it has actually loaded the page. Bookmark a page you have never loaded and there is no saved copy, so the browser falls back to a blank placeholder. That is the gray globe problem, and it is the rock most separator tools run aground on.

A separator is a favicon

Here is the connection. A Diviide separator is an ordinary bookmark. It points at a tiny address of Diviide's own, with your chosen shape and color written into it, and the favicon for that address is the divider you picked, in your exact color. When you drag a separator onto your bookmarks bar, you are really dragging a bookmark whose favicon is a divider and whose name is empty.

Because it is a real bookmark, your browser treats it like one. It syncs with the rest of your bookmarks, sits inside folders, and drags into place like anything else on the bar. No extension stays installed, and nothing runs in the background. The separator is just a bookmark wearing the right icon.

The clever part is that the color lives in the address itself. Open a separator and a tiny script reads the color back out of its own address and repaints the icon before anything appears. So the icon can always restore itself, even if your browser clears its saved copy. Ready to make one? How to add bookmark separators gets your first one onto the bar in a few seconds.

Common questions

What does favicon stand for?

Favicon is short for favorite icon. Early browsers called bookmarks favorites, and the favicon was the little icon shown next to each favorite. The name stuck, and now it covers the icon you see in tabs, history, and on the bookmarks bar.

Can I choose which icon a bookmark shows?

Not for a normal bookmark. The browser shows whatever favicon the website provides, and there is no built-in way to override it. A Diviide separator is the exception: its address carries the shape and color you chose, so its icon is entirely yours.

Do favicons work in every browser?

Every modern browser shows favicons for the sites you visit. Separators are a different story: Diviide separators keep their icon in Chrome and other Chromium browsers like Edge, Brave, Arc, and Opera, while Safari and Firefox handle bookmark icons differently.