Can I change the icon used to identify profiles in Google Chrome web browser?

I'd like to make the profile icons in chrome more meaningful.

E.g. a pic of the profile's user, my company's logo for my work profile.

Edit: I've changed the accepted answer to reflect application updates.

Solution 1:

Some of the answers are out of date or more complex than they need to be. Presumably Chrome has added some functionality since the question was asked.

As of June 2018:

First, check that a picture is associated with your Google account. Open GMail and see if a picture appears in the top right. If one shows up, you're good to go.

If you don't have a picture associated with your Google account:

1. Open Gmail
2. In the top right, click Settings
3. In the "My Picture" section, click Change picture

Note: Changing your picture in GMail affects your entire account. This is just a convenient place to do it.

Note: If you have a GMail contact for yourself, any picture attached to that contact may override the picture you see in GMail. It's worth checking to see if you have such a contact, and whether that contact uses the same picture.

To change your image in Chrome, once you have an account picture:

1. Open Chrome settings (Navigate to chrome://settings/ or via the menu)
2. Click the user icon near the top left of the page (to the left of your account name)
3. Select your account image if exists there

If your account image wasn't available, fear not. It just needs to be synced from Google.

1. From the main settings page click "Sign Out"
2. Do not choose to delete your data.
3. Sign in again.

Your current account image will be synced. Repeat the steps in the previous section and enjoy your icon.

Solution 2:

This worked for me:

1. Quit Chrome (ensure you don't have any running).
2. Find the Chrome application directory (e.g., on Windows, it is %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data, on Mac it's ~/Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome/).
3. Put your new avatar png file into the "Default" subdirectory.
4. Edit the "Local State" file in a good text editor.

5. Find the "profile" section; it resembles this:

      "profile": {
         "info_cache": {
            "Default": {
               "avatar_icon": "chrome://theme/IDR_PROFILE_AVATAR_7",
   

6. Ignore the "avatar_icon" line - it's not what you want!

7. Edit the "Default" profile section and add the following lines (I put them in the right alphabetical order amongst the other lines; I'm not sure whether that matters):

               "gaia_picture_file_name": "your-icon-file-name.png",
            "has_migrated_to_gaia_info": true,
            "use_gaia_picture": true,

8. Save the "Local State" file.

9. Start Chrome.

If you want to do this for other profiles, just do the above steps for a different directory besides "Default" (for example, "Profile 1").

You may want to star the Chrome issue 91230 http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=91230 to get a proper UI for this type of thing again.

(I also answered this at How do I access/edit the Chrome user avatar images? on Super User.)

Solution 3:

This is not possible in current versions of Google Chrome or Chromium.

The Chromium issue tracker has a ticket for adding this feature, which you can follow:

• Issue 91230: Multi-Profiles: Add support for custom avatar

Solution 4:

I just found a "non-hacky" way to fix this...

1. Click on the profile name at the top of the browser window.
2. Select the profile picture, the chrome settings page will appear with a list of avatars to choose from. Close this.
3. From the list of profiles, select the one labeled "Current". Note: this only works for the profile currently active.
4. Click "Edit". Your Google Profile Image should appear at the beginning of the list.
5. Switch profiles and repeat.

Chrome: Version 47.0.2526.106 m

OS: Windows 10 Pro