Dashicons are the official icon font of WordPress. Introduced in version 3.8, they provide a lightweight, consistent set of icons for the WordPress admin dashboard. They are used to visually represent menus, settings, tools, and other features, and can also be used on the front-end via code.
Key features:
- Loaded by default on all WordPress pages, even though they are mainly required in the backend.
- Built as a vector-based icon font, optimized for scalability and sharp rendering on different screens and resolutions.
- Include icons for posts, pages, media, settings, comments, tools, and more.
Performance impact:
Because Dashicons are loaded globally, they may add unnecessary CSS to the front-end. For this reason, performance optimization often recommends disabling Dashicons for non-logged-in users, keeping them active only in the admin area.
Example usage:
<span class="dashicons dashicons-admin-post"></span>
This snippet displays the icon associated with blog posts.
Note:
The term Dashicons is not translated between languages, as it is the proper name of the WordPress icon library.
