[Since EBCDIC]

Problem: Since upgrading to 10.3.3 I've noticed Safari 1.2.1 is getting slow upon page loads, almost always giving me the beachball until a page is completely loaded. A major change from the rather speedy browser I'd seen until recently.

This MacOSXHints thread describes a solution: "Over time, Safari stores more and more info in your user's Library/Safari folder. Even though you can "reset" Safari, this doesn't clean up everything. In my case, the offending garbage was the "Icons" folder that stores every favicon you have ever come across. I manually deleted this folder, which removed hundreds of files and folders from my machine and Safari. Once they were trashed, Safari was back to it's old speedy self."

Also shown is a command to take care of the problem, and one which might be added to your crontab:

find $HOME/Library/Safari/Icons -type f -atime +30 -name "*.cache" -delete

Also noted: if you set the Icon folder to 'READ ONLY' it keeps Safari from saving those files.

[tRr]

Wow, thanks so much for posting this.

I just tried moving the icons folder to begin with, and launch times went from around 15 seconds to around 3 seconds. I always though it was due to the number Bookmarks I have that Safari would slow down!

[ryju]

So then it works well? I'm trying now..

[Love Calm Quiet]

I would LOVE to try locking that Icons folder (having emptied it)...

but that "Lock" check box doesn't work... even though I have read/write permissions.

Can someone help the clueless figure out under what circumstances LOCKing is not available... and how to change that?

[Since EBCDIC]

Well, you might try to quit Safari to see whether the folder becomes lockable.

If not, you might try to issue this command in Terminal.app:

Code:
sudo chmod 100 ~/Library/Safari/Icons/

(you'll be asked for your password.) (that's the permissions mode on my Icon folder...)

Let us know...

[issa]

Thanks for pointing this out, Since EBCDIC. I just trashed the contents of the Icons folder, and Safari launches in a second or two as opposed to the 15 or 20 seconds it was taking. Brilliant.

To Love Calm Quiet: It's not the Lock box that you want to check. Click the little triangle besides "Ownership and Access Privileges", and then select "Read Only" from the pop-up menu you'll find there.

[Love Calm Quiet]

Thanks, Issa...

As I played around with command-I it seems that FOLDERS are NOT lockable.

But changing it to Read-only is cool. Hope it doesn't give Safari a migraine trying to write to it with each new page opened ?

[gorickey]

Wow, this is a nice trick; there again, I'm on a Dual 2.0 G5 so start time/performance was never really lacking that bad...

[Love Calm Quiet]

Given the performance hit for recording those (relatively) worthless little favoricons (or whatever you call them), might be nice if Safari made it a Preferences Option where to bother keeping track of them.

Who wants that vast array of folders & subfolders that OS X is using to keep track of the little beasts? (For that matter, isn't that a rather half-fast way to organize data? Almost as wacko as the cpu cycles Safari dedicates to displaying active emoticons like: -->

[tRr]

Originally posted by ryju:
So then it works well? I'm trying now..

I believe I had a bit over 19MB of these icons (maybe around 20MB is when Safari starts deleting them itself?) in over 700 files...

So far the launch time has been the most visible change, but also typing in the reply box for this forum was at times painfully slow. Typing this now it's as fast as I have every remembered it to be. So maybe this somehow helps with that as well....

[issa]

I posted my first impression so soon after removing the icons, (and so late at night), that I failed to include any detail about noted changes or improvements.

On first inspection, I found that Safari's Icons folder contained umpteen files totaling about 13.5MB in bulk/bloat. As I noted earlier, deleting those files dramatically reduced the time it takes for Safari to launch. Enough so that I immediately set the Icons folder to "Read Only".

What I soon discovered was that the removal of these icon cache files also delivered a tremendous speed boost to all the actions I had found to be growing increasingly less than responsive. The gradual slowing of the interface had long irked me, as I could tell from newly set-up machines that Safari was capable of greater performance than I was seeing on my own machine, despite the standard stabs at clearing the cache, resetting, etc. The speed increases include a huge improvement in opening and closing windows, the time it takes to access bookmarks in pop-up menus I've got placed in the Bookmark Bar, switching between the normal browser view and the bookmarks view, and pretty well all actions that access the interface, (i.e., just about everything one does in Safari). I am extremely pleased to finally learn how to make Safari perform that way I knew it could.

[MPMoriarty]

So let me make sure I understand what to do...

In order to make Safari faster, all I have to do is delete the ICONS folder located in LIBRARY -- > SAFARI?

Should I delete the whole folder or should I just clear out its contents?

Mike

[Chris Grande]

You can delete either the entire folder or just the contents.

I found this to bring the fastest browser on the Mac back to its fastest claims. I for the life of me can't figure out how its storing the files or what logic its using in its folder layout. This should really be a option in a future version, while they are slightly helpful in finding a site fast in a long list their should be a option to turn them off if they cause such a performance issue. Mine went from about 10 bounces down to 1.

[Since EBCDIC]

If you just delete the folder Safari will re-create it and you'll be back here in the near future. If you delete the contents and set the folder to read-only Safari can't fill it and this is one problem you won't have to deal with again.

The irony here is the performance impact versus the triviality of favicons. Something relatively unimportant is able to bring Safari to its knees. Oh well, Apple will fix this, just as OmniGroup fixed the long-bookmark-name problem of years past IIRC.

I'm happy that this hint has helped others. Thank the nice folks over at MacOSXHints. Hit a banner or whatever.

[badidea]

Where is the difference between deleting those favicons manually and the option in safari (delete cache) where you can also delete all favicons??

[JellyBeen]

There is another very helpful hint for speeding-up Safari.

Go in your Safari pref and select Autofill. Under the heading "Other forms" click the edit tab to the right and delete everything in there. You will notice some more additional gains in speed.

Have fun surfing again.

[Love Calm Quiet]

Even better... UNcheck "Other Forms"

[badidea]

Originally posted by badidea:
Where is the difference between deleting those favicons manually and the option in safari (delete cache) where you can also delete all favicons??

Oops, I mixed Safaris cache cleaning option with the possibilities Cocktail offers!

[hyatt]

While I can certainly see how a large favicon cache would affect Safari's launch time, I'm fairly skeptical that it would make all UI actions less responsive. That doesn't really make any sense from a technical perspective.

For example, this sluggish typing problem from the animated GIFs is intermittent (I have yet to determine the pattern), which means you may have stopped seeing the typing slowdown by sheer coincidence.

[hyatt]

An obvious exception of course being the bookmarks menu, which actually uses the favicons. If the lookups of the appropriate icons to use are affected by the size of the icon cache, then I can see how the bookmarks menu might slow down.

[gorickey]

Originally posted by hyatt:
An obvious exception of course being the bookmarks menu, which actually uses the favicons. If the lookups of the appropriate icons to use are affected by the size of the icon cache, then I can see how the bookmarks menu might slow down.

Yes, Camino fell under this category awhile back; however, I don't see it happening any more in the latest nightlies...

[issa]

hyatt writes:
While I can certainly see how a large favicon cache would affect Safari's launch time, I'm fairly skeptical that it would make all UI actions less responsive. That doesn't really make any sense from a technical perspective.

Certainly, favicons or a "favicon cache" on their/its own should not slow things down. Of course, there is also no good explanation why a favicon cache should contain hundreds or thousands of embedded folders and files that occupy more than 10 megabytes. Considering how large the "Icons" folder grows, it is hard to determine just what is held within unless one takes the time to examine the contents of the cache files. (I haven't the time to bother examining the insides of the files.)

While your skepticism is understandable, the proof is in the pudding. All UI actions in Safari sped up dramatically once I deleted the 13.5MB of bloat from the "Icons" folder. Of course, that was in my case on a set-up where 13.5MB of data and hundreds of files had accumulated in the "Icons" folder. There might not be much of a difference if one's "Icons" folder only contains several hundred KB, or a MB or two of files.

Depending on the programming, there are explanations why UI performance on many actions could be affected; for example, if accessing the cache files in the "Icons" folder is poorly implemented. It seems that Safari is accessing this hierarchy of scores or hundreds of folders containing hundreds files often if not every time the user tries to switch views, select menus, open or close windows, etc.; this is where the perceived slowdown in the UI comes about. For example:
� Switch from browser view to bookmark view (View All Bookmark <COMMAND + CONTROL + B> : Safari wades through the muck in the Icons folder : user waits for several seconds, (literally).
� Access lengthy pop-up menus set up under topic headings in Bookmark Bar, (not Bookmark Menu) : Safari wades through the muck in the Icons folder : user waits for several seconds, (literally).
� Close only window open : Safari goes through or tries to organize/update the files in the Icons folder in order to close the window that contains the Bookmark Bar and other UI elements that include icons: user waits for several seconds, (literally).
� Open first window: Safari goes through or somehow tries to organize or reference the files in the Icons folder in order to display the window that contains the Bookmark Bar and other UI elements that include icons: user waits for several seconds, (literally).
You get the point.

An obvious exception of course being the bookmarks menu, which actually uses the favicons. If the lookups of the appropriate icons to use are affected by the size of the icon cache, then I can see how the bookmarks menu might slow down.

Yes. And the Bookmarks Bar, which many of us use heavily, and which, significantly, is directly attached to the displayed window. And the History menu. And switching between any windows/views in which icons come into play. All in all, that covers quite a number of actions within the program.

[Mr Scruff]

Originally posted by hyatt:
While I can certainly see how a large favicon cache would affect Safari's launch time, I'm fairly skeptical that it would make all UI actions less responsive. That doesn't really make any sense from a technical perspective.

For example, this sluggish typing problem from the animated GIFs is intermittent (I have yet to determine the pattern), which means you may have stopped seeing the typing slowdown by sheer coincidence.

I was also sceptical as to why deleting the favicons would improve the responsiveness of the Safari interface, but it does seem to have made an obvious difference for me.

The major thing is the responsiveness when creating a new tab (though command/middle click). Before, Safari would grind to a halt and perhaps beachball, now it slows a bit but remains responsive.

As for it not making any sense from a technical perspective, well you know better than us. Probably worth asking whoever's in charge of that code to have look though.

[sledsbehave]

this is great, i thought it was my ibook, but it's much faster now

[aribus]

Why would these files be stored anyway? What good do they do?

[Taipan]

Hi!

Thanks, this one made my day! I have just recently been wondering why Safari takes so long to launch (11 bounces). After deleting that crap it went down to one bounce!

[Sophus]

Originally posted by aribus:
Why would these files be stored anyway? What good do they do?

Maybe Apple should fix this by storing only favicons from bookmarked pages. The favicons for other sites can be loaded when the site is viewed, That should dramatically cut down on the number of favicons stored. The favicons are really small files and should not slow down the page loading that much. Seems that it takes longer time to load from cache when the favicon cache gets this big.

Another suggestion would be to restrict the cache size, or expiry date for the favicons, so that the cache never gets that big. Just my 2 cents...

[suthercd]

To prevent Icons from being cached, you can create a file with that name in ~/Library/Safari. After deleting the folder, this is easily done in several ways. Use the Terminal-

Code:
 touch ~/Library/Safari/Icons

If you change your mind and want to keep the icon files, just delete that file.
Or use an Applescript to delete at your option. Put it in ~/Library/Scripts/ so it is available in the Menu Bar if you have Script Menu active.

Code:
try
   set _home to (path to home folder) as text
   set iconFolder to (_home & "Library:Safari:Icons:") as alias
	
   tell application "Finder"
      delete iconFolder
      empty trash
   end tell
on error
   quit
end try

HTH
Craig

[Since EBCDIC]

The really ironic thing about the caching of favicons causing a problem is that they're really, really small files.

The smallest logo image or banner ad dwarfs a favicon. Caching them is the most useless of functions, unless you really, really want to see the favicons in your bookmarks or history (in which case you cache a smaller subset of favicons than 'everything' (or 15 MB worth)).

Sadly, my PowerBook still doesn't seem as snappy as it was before 10.3.3, etc., and I'm considering pulling out my 10.2.x CharlesSoft boot image and doing some serious disk diagnostics. Something isn't right.

[hyatt]

The reason you have to cache favicons is to avoid angering server authors, since often favicons are not present. You not only have to cache favicons when they are present to avoid spamming the server with repeated requests for the icon, but you also have to cache favicon misses in order to avoid filling servers' error logs with requests for favicons that don't exist. You also want the icons to show up in bookmarks even when you have no net connection (and in offline mode if we ever implement that).

[Mr Scruff]

Originally posted by hyatt:
The reason you have to cache favicons is to avoid angering server authors, since often favicons are not present. You not only have to cache favicons when they are present to avoid spamming the server with repeated requests for the icon, but you also have to cache favicon misses in order to avoid filling servers' error logs with requests for favicons that don't exist. You also want the icons to show up in bookmarks even when you have no net connection (and in offline mode if we ever implement that).

Offtopic but offline mode would be a great addition! Assuming you mean in the IE Windows sense.

The main thing I'm waiting for in Safari is improved performance on page load - which I know you guys are working on anyway.

[brutal]

would it be possible to make safari not show favicons at all? I like the blue little globes, and eventhough I've made safari not cache the icons, they still stick to the bookmarks until I quit Safari.

[Deal]

Thanks man!

You have sped up my browser!

You may have saved thousands of people minutes of time everyday. That's like over 16 hours a day for a 1000 people!!!

humm, I wonder what else I can delete, how about thi