Default favicon is always included in output

I checked that…

• … the documentation does not mention anything about my problem
• … the problem doesn’t occur with the default MkDocs template
• … the problem is not in any of my customizations (CSS, JS, template)
• … there are no open or closed issues that are related to my problem

Description

When changing the default favicon via …

theme:
  favicon: images/favicon.png

… then this icon is correctly used in the output, but the default favicon is still copied to [site_dir]/assets/images/favicon.png.

Tested with Windows and macOS.

Expected behavior

Only one favicon file should be included in the output.

Actual behavior

Two favicons are included in the output: the default icon and the custom icon.

Steps to reproduce the bug

1. Create a blank project with mkdocs new.
2. Change mkdocs.yml to:

site_name: My Docs
theme:
  name: material
  favicon: images/favicon.png

1. Run mkdocs build.

Output folder structure:

[wilhelmer]

Follow-up: You can actually use mkdocs-exclude to exclude the orphan file. IMHO, this is the most elegant solution:

plugins:
    - exclude:
        glob:
            - assets/images/favicon.png

[squidfunk]

So it’s only fixable by a) overriding, b) post processing.

Correct 😊 Closing as answered.