Join the AMA (Ask Me Anything) with the Firefox leadership team to celebrate Firefox 20th anniversary and discuss Firefox’s future on Mozilla Connect. Mark your calendar on Thursday, November 14, 18:00 - 20:00 UTC!

This site will have limited functionality while we undergo maintenance to improve your experience. If an article doesn't solve your issue and you want to ask a question, we have our support community waiting to help you at @FirefoxSupport on Twitter and/r/firefox on Reddit.

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

How can I get Firefox bookmark shortcuts to retain their associated Icon when I paste a copy onto the desktop? All I get is a proper name with a blank sheet.

  • 2 replies
  • 2 have this problem
  • 1 view
  • Last reply by cor-el

more options

I am running Windows 7 64-bit Professional on my brand new PC. I used to be able to copy and paste a shortcut of any bookmark on the desktop or in any folder on any of my drives and the shortcut would have the logo icon associated with it in Firefox from the web developer. (This was on my old PC with the most recent version of Mozilla Firefox downloaded from Mozilla.org and that PC was running Windows 7 (64-bit Home Premium). This new PC has bookmarks shortcuts that work properly with my default FF 39.0 freshly installed browser, but all I see when I paste the shortcut anywhere is a blank sheet of paper as the representing icon, not a MSN symbol or a Google symbol, etc, The name of the bookmark shortcut is just as the web developer or I may have renamed it in Firefox when I created the bookmark. I did a test with the factory installed IE 11 which had the same FF .html imported bookmarks I backed up from my old PC. There I took a Facebook login favorite and copied and pasted a shortcut to the desktop from IE 11. It did show up with the Facebook logo and Facebook login name I gave it. I took the same exact bookmark (favorite) in Mozilla Firefox and did the same - the proper name showed up as well as a working shortcut, but again no facebook logo icon associated with it. This appears not to be an issue with the WIN 7 OS. All I am able to do with the pasted Firefox bookmark shortcut is paste it anywhere on my PC or external hard drive and go into on the bookmark shortcut: Properties, Change icon, and choose a default Windows icon or from my own personally created or downloaded icons.

Is there a simple way to fix this within Firefox?

I prefer Mozilla Firefox and need to do this instantly just as I can within Internet Explorer.

I am running Windows 7 64-bit Professional on my brand new PC. I used to be able to copy and paste a shortcut of any bookmark on the desktop or in any folder on any of my drives and the shortcut would have the logo icon associated with it in Firefox from the web developer. (This was on my old PC with the most recent version of Mozilla Firefox downloaded from Mozilla.org and that PC was running Windows 7 (64-bit Home Premium). This new PC has bookmarks shortcuts that work properly with my default FF 39.0 freshly installed browser, but all I see when I paste the shortcut anywhere is a blank sheet of paper as the representing icon, not a MSN symbol or a Google symbol, etc, The name of the bookmark shortcut is just as the web developer or I may have renamed it in Firefox when I created the bookmark. I did a test with the factory installed IE 11 which had the same FF .html imported bookmarks I backed up from my old PC. There I took a Facebook login favorite and copied and pasted a shortcut to the desktop from IE 11. It did show up with the Facebook logo and Facebook login name I gave it. I took the same exact bookmark (favorite) in Mozilla Firefox and did the same - the proper name showed up as well as a working shortcut, but again no facebook logo icon associated with it. This appears not to be an issue with the WIN 7 OS. All I am able to do with the pasted Firefox bookmark shortcut is paste it anywhere on my PC or external hard drive and go into on the bookmark shortcut: Properties, Change icon, and choose a default Windows icon or from my own personally created or downloaded icons. Is there a simple way to fix this within Firefox? I prefer Mozilla Firefox and need to do this instantly just as I can within Internet Explorer.
Attached screenshots

All Replies (2)

more options

I see the icon is missing on the short cut if you drag a bookmark from Firefox to the desktop. I am happy to help I could also reproduce this, see the screenshot.

I think this might be a Windows bug. They suggest the two work arounds you mentioned: http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/wi.../634a5d15-10da-434d-a20e-ab5514925ab3?auth=1

more options

Does it work if you first open the bookmark in a tab and then drag the "Site Identity Button" (globe/padlock) to the desktop?


Try to toggle the browser.shell.shortcutFavicons pref on the about:config page.

You can open the about:config page via the location/address bar. You can accept the warning and click "I'll be careful" to continue.