Simple Local Avatars

Add an avatar upload field to user profiles. Generate requested sizes on demand, just like Gravatar.

Adds an avatar upload field to user profiles if the current user has media permissions. Generates requested sizes on demand just like Gravatar! Simple and lightweight.

Just edit a user profile, and scroll down to the new “Avatar” field. The plug-in will take care of cropping and sizing!

  1. Stores avatars in the “uploads” folder where all of your other media is kept.
  2. Has a simple, native interface.
  3. Fully supports Gravatar and default avatars if no local avatar is set for the user – but also allows you turn off Gravatar.
  4. Generates the requested avatar size on demand (and stores the new size for efficiency), so it looks great, just like Gravatar!
  5. Lets you decide whether lower privilege users (subscribers, contributors) can upload their own avatar.
  6. Enables rating of local avatars, just like Gravatar.

Avatar upload field on a user profile page

  • Rating
  • Requires 5.7+
  • Downloads 1,598,572
  • Updated 2023-12-13
  1. Hello,

    I recently made a custom update profile page, so users don’t have to acces wp-admin. I downloaded your plugin, and thought I could use this in a page. Is this even possible, can I edit the admin_init hook in something else, so the avatar upload will apear in my profile page?

    Kind regards

    • Make sure you run the same profile field hooks that exist in the admin version of the edit user / profile script!

  2. cool plugin, everything seemed to work but now I can only upload photos through admin login. All other users have it visible under profile but they’re missing the “Browse field” next to the default user photo.

    All help is appreciated, thanks.

    • Are you allowing users without upload media permissions to manage their avatar? See Settings > Discussion.

  3. Sorry for my stupid question, but how to change language in this plugin?

    • It will automatically use the language WordPress is set to, if the plug-in has been translated for that language.

  4. Will the Simple Local Avatars work using s2member plugin. In there, they have a way to redirect the user away from the default profile page to another page where they can serve up profile fields. However, the Simple Local Avatars does not show up on that page.

  5. Hey there!

    I’m a total noob at word-press (and googling my way through customizing it, at the moment).

    I totally love your pluggin, but was wondering if there’s any way to have the upload form on an actual “page”. Is there shortcode? Or is there a way for me to create shortcode so I can chuck the form on a seperate page.

    It’s obviously more an aesthetic concern than one of functionality – but anyhow…thought I’d ask.

    Thanks again for the awesome plugin. :)

    • Right now it’s built to be used on the edit / add user screens, only.

  6. Great plugin, simple and very efficient! Still, I have a couple of remarks:

    – first, it would be nice to be able to limit the size of the avatar file. In particular, just relying on the limit defined at the server level can result in a security problem when all contributors are allowed to upload their own avatar file.

    – I’ve also noticed that the file is uploaded on the server with its original filename (the one defined by the user). Would it be possible that the plugin renames the file before uploading it, in order to get cleaner url?

    Anyway, thanks for your job on this plugin !

    Yoann

    • I don’t really want to add new options for managing a size limitation. I think the security is minimal, given that it erases their previous avatar if they upload a new one (and it enforces the file type).

      I am thinking of modifying the plug-in to format the image name with something more obvious, like “username_avatar”, however.

    • Thank you for the new update with image name formating !

      Yoann

  7. Hello, I’d like to know if it’s possible to use this plugin on the front end because my users edit the profile on the front end, they have no access to admin.
    Sorry my poor English, I’m Brazilian girl.

  8. Hello, I’m setting up a page listing the list of authors..
    Is there any way to show the avatars through wp_list_authors ?
    Thank you very much!
    Great job btw!

    • Possibly using the hooks inside the function.

  9. Hi, I’m building a WP blog for my parents, so simplicity is key. Your plugin fits the bill perfectly! Quick question (which may reflect my own newbie status): Why do the avatars NOT show in posts .. just in comments? Bug, feature, or common practice?

    Great product either way. Thanks!

    • It’s showing the wrong avatar (i.e. not finding it), or you don’t have avatars in posts? The former should work, the latter is a theme issue (the theme developer didn’t add an avatar to the post), not a plug-in issue.

  10. Awesome plugin! Very simple…but I have encountered a bump in the road. The selected avatar shows up just fine in the author information on a single post, but when you click on the author and it takes you to the profile page it uses the default avatar. Both pages have the following code to display the author image:

    but it only shows up on one page. Have you or anyone else encountered this issue?? If you have…how did you fix it?

    Thanks!

    • Your code was stripped out.

  11. Hi Jake.
    Quick well done for the simplicity of the plugin and also the time you are taking to respond to comments.
    The fact it will just keep on producing new avatars to requested sizes is genius. Plus its the only one that worked out the box with 3.2.1.
    I needed my profile pictures to be landscape (rather than square) so had to modify the image-resize proportions and remove the height attribute from the img tag.
    I guess a feature to depict proportion/ratio or a choice of landscape/square/portrait for us fussy developers would have eased my pain … but I appreciate what you are trying to do with this plugin so am cool with a quick modification of your code if its not a consideration – although personally i don’t feel it strays from the ethos of simplicity if I am being totally honest. (Go on…you know it’d only mean a quick bit of math on $size to give you $height and $width if you set it up) Okay feature sell over.
    Good work anyway! Great help.

    • I can try and make sure this is doable with some hooks for folks like yourself, however, I’m disinclined to add it to the plug-in. The plug-in is meant to be a local supplement to Gravatar, which produces square avatars. It falls back to Gravatar if no local avatar is saved, and there’s no way to reliably return a different aspect ratio from there. It would also require me to modify the way the native “get_avatar” function works, which accepts one size argument. I could hook that, but than the theme would break without the plug-in.

  12. Where’s the documentation on how to use this besides the install?

  13. I would love it if the plugin had the option to choose an image already uploaded into the media gallery, other than just uploading a new one. Any chance of this functionality getting added in?

    • Not likely. I feel this would clutter the simple user interface, but I will consider it.

  14. Hi,
    First of all, great plugin thanks for sharing with the world :)

    I wonder if there’s any plans to support Multi Site? The user uploads the avatar on the main site and the avatar goes along with him through all the other sites as i clone all their users through the network regarthless of were they registeres.

    Thanks

    • I’ll work on this.

  15. Hello, great plugin! What I’ve noticed is that the quality of the pic uploaded is degraded. I upload a 100×100 JPG and when I compare a 100×100 called avatar on a page, it look significantly of poorer quality than the original. Any reason for that? How can I make sure that the avatar’s integrity isn’t compromised on upload?

    Thanks!

    • Servers have a configuration option that lets you set the level of quality when doing image management. Sounds like it might be set low.

  16. Hi Jake! Thanks for this great plugin. I got a php error when used a bmp images file. Then i changed the avatar to jpeg and the error was gone. Just wanted to let you know.

  17. Simple,great and easy to use plugin!
    Thanks !
    A small issue ..
    I cannot change the gravatar size using get_avatar($author->ID, ’40’)

    i even try using echo get_simple_local_avatar($author->ID, $size=’36’) , the size remains the same 96px , how can i change the size for specific page or template ?

    Thanks

    • It should resize. Might be a problem with your server set up (image controls) or a caching issue if you have a page cache.

  18. I’m having trouble with Avatars switching all by themselves. I publish an online magazine utilizing Solostream’s WP-Prosper theme. I have several “users/authors” that I create for all the articles. Each author has a Headshot for their Avatar. The theme allows a bio section at the bottom of each article. The problem I’m having is that the avatars are switching, so Suzanne’s picture/avatar is showing up on Nicole’s article. Is there something I can do to fix this problem? Thanks!

    Kelly

    • Sounds almost certainly like a problem with the theme.

  19. Hi! Looking at the list of users have found that the two became an administrator. It turned out that the second file is loaded *. php.gif
    You can then how to protect yourself from these PHP avatars?

    Thank you.

    • That’s a flaw in earlier versions of PHP5 I believe.

  20. Just wanted to say: Great plugin! Simple, easy, did exactly what I needed it to do. I mean, how professional can your site really look with the little, germ-looking thingies as your Avatar.

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