Restore Missing Firefox Homepage Shortcut Icons on Your Computer

Your Firefox homepage tiles are gone, and the new tab page looks empty where your daily sites used to sit. That usually means Firefox Home is no longer the active page or the Shortcuts section got switched off.

Check the homepage setting first, turn Shortcuts back on from the Customize panel, and rebuild any single tiles you removed. It takes about two minutes.

In this guide, I have covered:

Shortcut icons missing? Start with Firefox Home

You open a new tab and the grid of tiles is empty, or only a few icons survived. Before you rebuild anything, rule out the most common cause: Firefox Home may no longer be the page you get on new tabs or in new windows.

A profile switch, a sync update, or a dismissed tile can also clear the row. The checks below run from lightest to heaviest, so start at the top.

1. Open the menu in Firefox and select Settings.
2. Select General and locate the Firefox Home section.
3. Set the applicable new-tab or new-window option to Firefox Home.
4. Open a new tab and confirm that the Firefox Home layout appears.

If Firefox Home shows up but the shortcut area stays empty, the Shortcuts section itself is the next suspect.

TIP: You can also type about:newtab in the address bar to load the Firefox Home page in the current tab.

Turn the Shortcuts section back on

Firefox Home loads fine, but the tile grid is blank. That usually means the Shortcuts section is switched off, and it has its own toggle, separate from the rest of the page.

1. Open a new tab and select the Customize button.
2. Find Shortcuts in the customization panel.
3. Turn on the Shortcuts toggle if it is disabled.
4. Set Number of rows to the number of shortcut rows you want.
5. Close the customization panel and check the shortcut icons on the page.

The icons come back as soon as the toggle flips. You’ll know it worked when the grid reappears and Firefox refills the rows with sites you’ve saved or visited recently.

If the Shortcuts controls are unavailable or greyed out, your new tabs or new windows are probably set to a custom URL or a blank page instead of Firefox Home. Go back to the first section and change the homepage option to Firefox Home.

Rebuild a single missing shortcut

One or two tiles gone rather than the whole grid? Recreate them by hand. This is the normal fix when a tile was dismissed or dropped after a profile change.

1. Open a new tab.
2. Right-click an empty area of the Shortcuts section and select Add New Shortcut.
3. Enter a name for the shortcut and provide the site address.
4. Select Add to create the tile.
5. Right-click the new tile and select Pin if you want to keep it in place.

The tile appears the moment you confirm, and it stays put once pinned. Without a pin, Firefox can treat it as a temporary shortcut.

Whole grid missing? Check which profile you’re in

If the entire Shortcuts section is gone, not just a few icons, Firefox may have started in a different profile. Shortcuts are built from the sites you save and visit in that profile, so a fresh profile opens with an empty grid.

1. Open the menu and select Profile.
2. Select Profiles from the profile menu.
3. Open the profile you normally use and start Firefox in it.
4. Open a new tab and check the Shortcuts section again.

Confirm that Shortcuts is still enabled, then reload the new tab page. If the homepage controls stay greyed out or behave oddly, work through the Firefox settings reset guide.

RELATED: Remove Unwanted Content from the Firefox New Tab Page

Confirm the icons are back for good

Open a few new tabs in a row and watch whether the Shortcuts row holds its icons. Then right-click a restored tile and check that Pin, Unpin, Edit, and Delete from History all still appear.

If the icons show in one new tab but not the next, close the bad tab and open a replacement. When they still refuse to appear, the Mozilla support discussion about missing homepage shortcuts is worth reading.