Change User Pictures

Auth0 normalizes common profile properties in the User Profile, this includes the name, picture field and more. The picture field is populated by either the social provider profile picture or the Gravatar image associated with the user's email address.

By default, all database users will have a placeholder image with their initials. When you authenticate the user, this picture field is referred to as user.picture.

Dashboard User Management User Details Tab

The user.picture attribute is not directly editable when provided by identity providers other than Auth0 such as Google, Facebook, Twitter. To edit this attribute, you must configure your connection sync with Auth0 so that user attributes will be updated from the identity provider only on user profile creation. To learn more, read Configure Identity Provider Connection for User Profile Updates. Root attributes will then be available to be edited individually or by bulk import using the Management API. To learn more, read Bulk User Imports.

Alternatively, you can use metadata to store the picture attribute for users. For example, if your app provides a way to upload profile pictures, once the picture is uploaded, you can set the URL to the picture in the user.user_metadata.picture:

cURL
C#
Go
Java
Node.JS
Obj-C
...
- PHP
- Python
- Ruby
- Swift

curl --request PATCH \
  --url 'https://YOUR_DOMAIN/api/v2/users/USER_ID' \
  --header 'authorization: Bearer ABCD' \
  --header 'content-type: application/json' \
  --data '{"user_metadata": {"picture": "https://example.com/some-image.png"}}'

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var client = new RestClient("https://YOUR_DOMAIN/api/v2/users/USER_ID");
var request = new RestRequest(Method.PATCH);
request.AddHeader("authorization", "Bearer ABCD");
request.AddHeader("content-type", "application/json");
request.AddParameter("application/json", "{\"user_metadata\": {\"picture\": \"https://example.com/some-image.png\"}}", ParameterType.RequestBody);
IRestResponse response = client.Execute(request);

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package main

import (
	"fmt"
	"strings"
	"net/http"
	"io/ioutil"
)

func main() {

	url := "https://YOUR_DOMAIN/api/v2/users/USER_ID"

	payload := strings.NewReader("{\"user_metadata\": {\"picture\": \"https://example.com/some-image.png\"}}")

	req, _ := http.NewRequest("PATCH", url, payload)

	req.Header.Add("authorization", "Bearer ABCD")
	req.Header.Add("content-type", "application/json")

	res, _ := http.DefaultClient.Do(req)

	defer res.Body.Close()
	body, _ := ioutil.ReadAll(res.Body)

	fmt.Println(res)
	fmt.Println(string(body))

}

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HttpResponse<String> response = Unirest.patch("https://YOUR_DOMAIN/api/v2/users/USER_ID")
  .header("authorization", "Bearer ABCD")
  .header("content-type", "application/json")
  .body("{\"user_metadata\": {\"picture\": \"https://example.com/some-image.png\"}}")
  .asString();

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var axios = require("axios").default;

var options = {
  method: 'PATCH',
  url: 'https://YOUR_DOMAIN/api/v2/users/USER_ID',
  headers: {authorization: 'Bearer ABCD', 'content-type': 'application/json'},
  data: {user_metadata: {picture: 'https://example.com/some-image.png'}}
};

axios.request(options).then(function (response) {
  console.log(response.data);
}).catch(function (error) {
  console.error(error);
});

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#import <Foundation/Foundation.h>

NSDictionary *headers = @{ @"authorization": @"Bearer ABCD",
                           @"content-type": @"application/json" };
NSDictionary *parameters = @{ @"user_metadata": @{ @"picture": @"https://example.com/some-image.png" } };

NSData *postData = [NSJSONSerialization dataWithJSONObject:parameters options:0 error:nil];

NSMutableURLRequest *request = [NSMutableURLRequest requestWithURL:[NSURL URLWithString:@"https://YOUR_DOMAIN/api/v2/users/USER_ID"]
                                                       cachePolicy:NSURLRequestUseProtocolCachePolicy
                                                   timeoutInterval:10.0];
[request setHTTPMethod:@"PATCH"];
[request setAllHTTPHeaderFields:headers];
[request setHTTPBody:postData];

NSURLSession *session = [NSURLSession sharedSession];
NSURLSessionDataTask *dataTask = [session dataTaskWithRequest:request
                                            completionHandler:^(NSData *data, NSURLResponse *response, NSError *error) {
                                                if (error) {
                                                    NSLog(@"%@", error);
                                                } else {
                                                    NSHTTPURLResponse *httpResponse = (NSHTTPURLResponse *) response;
                                                    NSLog(@"%@", httpResponse);
                                                }
                                            }];
[dataTask resume];

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$curl = curl_init();

curl_setopt_array($curl, [
  CURLOPT_URL => "https://YOUR_DOMAIN/api/v2/users/USER_ID",
  CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER => true,
  CURLOPT_ENCODING => "",
  CURLOPT_MAXREDIRS => 10,
  CURLOPT_TIMEOUT => 30,
  CURLOPT_HTTP_VERSION => CURL_HTTP_VERSION_1_1,
  CURLOPT_CUSTOMREQUEST => "PATCH",
  CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS => "{\"user_metadata\": {\"picture\": \"https://example.com/some-image.png\"}}",
  CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER => [
    "authorization: Bearer ABCD",
    "content-type: application/json"
  ],
]);

$response = curl_exec($curl);
$err = curl_error($curl);

curl_close($curl);

if ($err) {
  echo "cURL Error #:" . $err;
} else {
  echo $response;
}

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import http.client

conn = http.client.HTTPSConnection("")

payload = "{\"user_metadata\": {\"picture\": \"https://example.com/some-image.png\"}}"

headers = {
    'authorization': "Bearer ABCD",
    'content-type': "application/json"
    }

conn.request("PATCH", "/YOUR_DOMAIN/api/v2/users/USER_ID", payload, headers)

res = conn.getresponse()
data = res.read()

print(data.decode("utf-8"))

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require 'uri'
require 'net/http'
require 'openssl'

url = URI("https://YOUR_DOMAIN/api/v2/users/USER_ID")

http = Net::HTTP.new(url.host, url.port)
http.use_ssl = true
http.verify_mode = OpenSSL::SSL::VERIFY_NONE

request = Net::HTTP::Patch.new(url)
request["authorization"] = 'Bearer ABCD'
request["content-type"] = 'application/json'
request.body = "{\"user_metadata\": {\"picture\": \"https://example.com/some-image.png\"}}"

response = http.request(request)
puts response.read_body

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import Foundation

let headers = [
  "authorization": "Bearer ABCD",
  "content-type": "application/json"
]
let parameters = ["user_metadata": ["picture": "https://example.com/some-image.png"]] as [String : Any]

let postData = JSONSerialization.data(withJSONObject: parameters, options: [])

let request = NSMutableURLRequest(url: NSURL(string: "https://YOUR_DOMAIN/api/v2/users/USER_ID")! as URL,
                                        cachePolicy: .useProtocolCachePolicy,
                                    timeoutInterval: 10.0)
request.httpMethod = "PATCH"
request.allHTTPHeaderFields = headers
request.httpBody = postData as Data

let session = URLSession.shared
let dataTask = session.dataTask(with: request as URLRequest, completionHandler: { (data, response, error) -> Void in
  if (error != nil) {
    print(error)
  } else {
    let httpResponse = response as? HTTPURLResponse
    print(httpResponse)
  }
})

dataTask.resume()

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To ensure that the picture from the user_metadata is returned in the ID token, create a rule to check whether the user.user_metadata.picture attribute is present, and if so replace the user.picture attribute with that value. This ensures that the picture from the user_metadata is returned in the picture claim of the ID token.

Here is an example of the code you can use in your rule:

function (user, context, callback) {
  if (user.user_metadata.picture)
    user.picture = user.user_metadata.picture;

  callback(null, user, context);
}

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To change the default picture for all users who do not have a profile picture set, you can use a rule to do this. For example:

function (user, context, callback) {
  if (user.picture.indexOf('cdn.auth0.com') > -1) {
    const url = require('url');
    const u = url.parse(user.picture, true);
    u.query.d = 'URL_TO_YOUR_DEFAULT_PICTURE_HERE';
    delete u.search;
    user.picture = url.format(u);
  }
  callback(null, user, context);
}

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The Auth0 data store is limited and to prevent your application's data from exceeding the limits, we recommend that you use an external database to store user pictures. This allows you to keep your Auth0 data store small and to use a more efficient external database to hold the additional data. To learn more, read User Data Storage.

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