Internet Explorer Favorites Icon Tip

The problem with the icons for Internet Explorer favorites is that Internet Explorer stores them in its cache. Since the cache gets full eventually and starts overwriting older files, your favorites icons are also overwritten. The solution to this problem is to create a special directory for your favorites icons and save them all there. You can usually find the favorites icon for a web site by typing "favicon.ico" after the domain name because the icon must be in the root directory of a web site and it must use that name. Then just save the web page using File | Save As | web page complete. The only thing that will be saved is the icon file.

Rename the icon file and save it to your special directory where you are saving these icons. In Internet Explorer right click on a favorites bookmark and select Properties from the context menu. Then click the Change Icon.. button. Click the Browse button and browse to your special directory to find your saved icon file for this web site.

Managing your favorite icons manually is a real pain but that is what you have to do until Microsoft changes how their stupid browser stores them. It does give you a nice collection of icons and it is worth it to have visual clues in your bookmarks.

posted by Robert Robbins @ 7:45 PM