Creating a favicon.ico that loads in IE

I’ve never had a problem with browsers, specifically IE, loading favicons created for my client sites. But this week I had one site where the favicon would load in every browser EXCEPT Internet Explorer.

Normally, I create favicon images in Adobe Photoshop, at 16×16 pixels, and use Save for Web & Devices… to create a GIF named favicon.gif

I rename favicon.gif to favicon.ico and upload. 

This week, I downloaded and used successfully an Adobe Photoshop plugin called ICOFormat from Telegraphics.com

I’m a big fan of one-trick ponies, and this is a good one. It does one thing and it does it well.

I opened the previous favicon I had created then selected File –> Save as… and selected the ICO (Windows Icon) format option. Posted the revised file and suddenly IE was loading the favicon.

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