Where does the Mac store account pictures?

Question

I took a picture to add to my account on Mac.

Now I want to use it on messenger, but I can't find it. On the account config, it's too small. I need to find the original.

Where are the accout pictures stored on a Mac?

Answer 1

Mac OS X 10.5+ stores user's account pictures within the Directory Service with the exception of an account that has not modified their user picture from when first created. When first created an account contains a 'Picture' attribute in their user record that is a path to the image in question. This can be read using the dscl command (dscl . -read /Users/short_username Picture).

If a user has modified their user picture at any time the account picture (aka cropped version if appropriate) is stored in the 'JPEGPhoto' attribute of their user record.

Original files can be found at /Library/User Pictures if you're looking for an Apple provided picture, while your personal original files should be found at ~/Library/Images/iChat Recent Pictures/. If the files are ever removed from the iChat Recent Pictures folder it will not affect your user account's image whatsoever.

If you wish to extract a 320x320 version of your account picture you can do so by running the following command: dscl . -read /Users/short_username JPEGPhoto | tail -1 | xxd -r -p > /PATH/TO/accountImage.jpg

If you are running Mac OS X 10.4, my memory is failing me as I don't recall if the user picture was stored in NetInfo or not.

Answer 2

Take a look in

your account...Library...Images...iChat...Recent Pictures

Answer 3

If you click on the icon in the "Accounts" preference page a context menu appears that offers "Edit picture ..." as the top-most option. This opens a dialog that - at least in my case - shows a larger version of my user icon. I guess for the specific purpose of creating a messenger icon it would be feasible to simply screen-shot this picture.

Admittedly, without having the technical background to answer the actual question I'm really not sure whether the actual user icons are stored in a regular file. If this file were located inside your user account (i.e. ˜/Library) the preference page would have to crawl deeply in your account for displaying the icon if another user merely opens the "Account" preference page.

If, OTOH, the file were be stored somewhere in /Library it would probably be difficult to set the icon individually for each user who doesn't have administrator rights. Someone else shed some light on this, please.