Avatars

One of the most useful features of Gravatar is showing an avatar to represent you on other sites. A default image will be used until you provide your own, either by uploading an image, or using your computer’s or mobile device’s camera.

You can upload as many profile images as you want, with only the primary image being used as your ‘current’ avatar. You can change this primary image at any time and it will be updated across all sites. This is a nice way to introduce seasonal avatars!

Uploading images

You can upload images from the profile editor Avatars section.

Clicking the upload image button will open a file selector where you can browser your computer or mobile device library.

Clicking the use camera button will use your device’s camera, if it has one.

Image editing

Once an image is uploaded, you will be able to edit it using the editor.

Please note: If you encounter the error message, “WebGL is not supported or disabled in your browser,” please ensure that the necessary browser settings are enabled.

For Google Chrome:

1. Open Chrome and type chrome://settings/system into the address bar.
2. In the System section, make sure the “Use hardware acceleration when available” option is enabled.
3. Restart Chrome for the changes to take effect.

For Firefox:

Please refer to this Firefox support document for detailed instructions on enabling hardware acceleration.

Camera uploads

If you use the camera feature you may be required to give permissions for Gravatar to access your camera. This will vary across devices and browsers, but will typically look something like this:

When permission has been granted you will see a camera preview, along with a set of buttons and a way of selecting additional cameras, should they exist.

Clicking the ‘capture’ button will take a snapshot of the current preview. You will have a chance to review this before uploading.

Setting your current avatar

You may have multiple images in your account, but only one can be the current avatar shown on your profile. This is shown with a border:

You can select another image by clicking on that image.

Note that it may take a little while for external sites to start using your new image.

Adding Alt Text to your Avatars

You may optionally add alt text to your avatars to briefly describe them, enhancing accessibility for visually impaired users and providing context when images cannot be viewed.

To add alt text to an avatar, begin by visiting https://gravatar.com/profile/avatars. On this page, hover over your desired avatar with your mouse, and click the three ellipses dots shown in the screenshot below:

Clicking these dots will load the above, with the options “Alt text”, “Change rating”, and “Delete”. Select “Alt Text”.

After selecting “Alt text” a modal window will show (below). This is where you can enter your desired alt text:

Once you’ve entered your desired alt text, click the blue “Save” button and repeat these steps on a per-avatar basis to optionally add alt text to each of your avatars, if you have multiple avatars.

Deleting images

To delete an image you need to hover over the image and click on the ellipsis button. A popup menu should appear with an option to delete.

It should be noted that if you delete your profile image then you profile will start showing a default Gravatar image.

Rating an image

You can set a rating on each image. This affects which sites will show your image and allows them to control things that may be inappropriate for their audience. By default an image has a general rating and can be displayed anywhere.

To set a rating hover over an image, click the ellipsis button, and pick the rating option.

Allowed formats

Gravatar allows most common image formats:

• JPEG
• PNG
• HEIC

Your image should be smaller than 10MB.