Apple Replaced my Gmail Image

I use Chrome on my Macbook to send an email through Gmail. While in Gmail, on the top right corner I can see my Google (g+) profile image, but when I hit reply button to reply to an email, then instead of my Google image, it's the default icon that came with my Macbook Admin account (a hawk) being used.

Here is a screenshot of the issue:

This is really, really annoying and looks totally unprofessional, which makes me wondering about Apple products. I have deleted my Gmail account from the Apple's Mail app and I have also disable it from the Messages app, but still Apple's image persists.

So, how can I get rid of Apple's image appearing on Gmail? Does anybody know how those two are being connected?

NOTE: Just to note that I've used my Gmail email address to register to Apple.

Solution 1:

I had this happen when I set up Messages with my Google account on a new Mac, without using Apple Mail or Contacts; suddenly Gmail was the stock image the Mac had defaulted to.

The fix was to log into Gmail via the browser, go into its settings:

-- the gear menu, not the Google Account menu (which was still showing my usual Google profile picture), where I found the offending image in the My Picture section, and was able to change it.

Solution 2:

Apple did not change your Gmail profile picture. What is (likely) actually happening is the following:

When you add a Gmail account to Mail.app, you can choose to sync contacts with Google. (It might even do it by default. I am not sure because it has been years since I set it up.) If you do so, all of the contacts in Contacts (Address Book) on your Mac will be sent to Google, including the contact that represents you. If you did not set up a specific contact for yourself in Mac Contacts, Apple did so and for that contact, the picture would have been the one used for your Mac user account.

When the contacts synced to Google, the one with your name, email and the hawk picture was sent along with it. Google reads your contacts and displays the icon from your contacts, NOT your Gmail/Google+ profile picture, next to the Reply/Forward box.

To test this, confirm you have a contact in your Gmail account that has your email address in it, and that it has that picture. Delete that contact and the picture next to the Reply/Forward box should return to normal. You can prevent this going forward by changing the picture for your entry in Contacts on your Mac.

Solution 3:

You are probably syncing Google contacts to the Contacts app in OS X. If this is the case, you can edit the image by finding your contact card in the Contacts app and clicking the image to choose a new one. This change should then sync to your Google account.

If you want to turn contact syncing off for your Google account, you can do so in System Preferences > Internet Accounts.