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

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.)


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

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.

Image Showing Steps


Chrome: Version 47.0.2526.106 m

OS: Windows 10 Pro