# The public folder

> Files in /public are served at your site's root as they are - favicon, robots.txt, downloads, files your code fetches - in the preview and when published.
> Source: https://playcode.io/docs/classic/public-folder - last reviewed 2026-10-09.
> Ask Playcode's agent: "Add a robots.txt to the public folder that lets search engines crawl the whole site." It writes the file in /public; publish again to put it online.

Files in a folder named `public`, at the root of the project, are served at the root of your site, unchanged: `/public/robots.txt` answers at `/robots.txt`. This works the same in the preview and on the published site.

## How paths map

| File in the project | Address on the site |
|---|---|
| `/public/favicon.ico` | `/favicon.ico` |
| `/public/robots.txt` | `/robots.txt` |
| `/public/images/logo.png` | `/images/logo.png` |

Write the address without `/public`. To get it, right-click the file in the file list and choose **Copy Path**: it copies `/images/logo.png`, not `/public/images/logo.png`.

## What to put there

| Put in `public` | Keep out of `public` |
|---|---|
| `favicon.ico`, `robots.txt`, `sitemap.xml`, `manifest.json`, a service worker | Scripts and styles your pages use: link or import them, so the bundler builds them |
| Downloads, like a PDF | Images you `import` in your code: an import bundles the file wherever it is |
| Files your code loads with `fetch()` at run time, like a `.json` file or a `.wasm` file | |
| Files another service expects at a fixed address | |

## How the bundler treats these paths

| Where the path is | What happens |
|---|---|
| In HTML, like `<img src="/images/logo.png">` | The bundler leaves it as it is, and the site serves the file from `public` |
| In CSS, like `url("/images/bg.webp")` | The bundler finds the file in `public` and includes it in the build |
| In code, like `fetch('/data.json')` | The request goes to the site, which serves `/public/data.json` |

## Limits

- Publish again after you add or change a file: the published site has the files of your last publish.
- A published static site has a size limit for each file: see [Bandwidth and limits](/docs/publish/bandwidth-and-limits).
- Files you upload, like images, count toward the upload storage of the project's owner: see [Plans](/docs/account-and-billing/plans).
- This page is about static sites. A Cloud app is built by its own tools: see [Browser and Cloud projects](/docs/build/browser-and-cloud-projects).