Do You Really Need Every Favicon File, or Just favicon.ico?

A generator hands you a folder of icon files. Most sites use a handful of them. Here is what each one is actually for, so you can ship the ones your surfaces need and skip the rest with a clear conscience.

Short answer: A single well-made favicon.ico covers browser tabs everywhere. You only need the extra files for specific surfaces: the iOS home screen, an installable PWA, the Google search icon, dark mode. Match the files to the surfaces you actually use, not to a checklist.

Why generators hand you the whole kit

A favicon generator exports a dozen or more files because it can't know which surfaces you care about, so it covers all of them at once: every browser, iOS, Android, PWA install, Windows tiles, the lot. That's a sensible default: the files are tiny and shipping a few unused ones costs nothing but a little clutter.

But more files is not a better favicon. It's a more covered one. Whether that coverage is worth anything depends entirely on which surfaces your visitors actually reach, and for a lot of sites that's a short list.

What each file is for, and who needs it

File(s) | Surface it serves | Do you need it?
favicon.ico | Browser tabs, bookmarks, crawlers, feed readers | Yes, always
favicon.svg / 32px PNG | Sharper tab icon on modern browsers | Nice to have
apple-touch-icon (180) | iOS home screen shortcut | Only if people save your site to an iPhone
manifest + 192/512 PNG | Android and PWA install | Only if it's an installable app
maskable icon | Android adaptive icon shaping | Only for a PWA
48px+ icon | The favicon in Google search results | Yes, if you care how you look in search

The honest minimum

For a plain marketing site, a blog, or a docs page, a single favicon.ico holding 16, 32, and 48 pixel versions is genuinely enough. Add an SVG if you want a crisp icon on high-density screens, and you're done. Nobody is installing your blog to their home screen, so the apple-touch-icon and the manifest icons sit there unused.

That 48-pixel entry does double duty: it's also the size Google wants before it will show a favicon next to your result, so a good .ico quietly covers your search appearance too.

When the full set earns its place

The extra files stop being optional the moment you use the surfaces they serve. An installable PWA won't even offer to install without a 192 and a 512 in its manifest. An app people add to their iPhone home screen looks broken without an apple-touch-icon, because iOS falls back to a blurry screenshot. A product that leans on dark mode wants a theme-aware icon so it doesn't vanish against the tab strip.

On those sites the "extra" icons aren't extra at all: they're the only way to look right on surfaces your users genuinely reach. Coverage matters exactly where it's used, which is the point the case for full coverage is really making.

Unused icons aren't a ranking factor: Shipping twenty files doesn't make your favicon rank better or look better. Google needs one icon of at least 48px to show you in search; the rest are for non-search surfaces. An apple-touch-icon on a site nobody saves to a home screen is dead weight, not an SEO signal.

So should a generator make you choose?

Our take: exporting the complete set is the right default, because it's safe and costs you almost nothing. But you should feel free to ship only what your surfaces need (a favicon.ico for everyone, plus an apple-touch-icon and a manifest if you have an app or a PWA) and delete the rest without guilt.

The useful mental model isn't "how many favicon files should I have," it's "which surfaces do I actually appear on." Answer that, and the file list answers itself.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need all those favicon sizes?

No. A favicon.ico with 16, 32, and 48 pixel versions covers browser tabs and the Google search icon. The other sizes map to specific surfaces (iOS home screens, Android and PWA install), so ship those only if you use them.

Is just favicon.ico enough?

For browser tabs across every browser, yes. It's not enough for iOS home-screen shortcuts, PWA install, or a theme-aware dark-mode icon, and each of those needs its own file. If you don't use those surfaces, a single good .ico is fine.

Does having more favicon files help SEO?

No. There's no ranking benefit to extra icons. Google only needs one icon of at least 48x48 to display a favicon in results; the additional files serve non-search surfaces and don't affect rankings.

Will unused favicon files slow my site down?

Barely. A file is only fetched when a surface actually requests it, and favicons are cached hard after the first load. The real cost of shipping icons you don't use is clutter in your project, not page speed.