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d6d24r94

Q: Where is my account picture stored?

I took a picture of myself using my iSight camera when I set up my MacBook. Where is the picture stored? Does someone have the Finder directory? I want to upload this same picture to YouTube for my profile.

MacBook (mid 2007), Mac OS X (10.6.5), 1GB RAM, 2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo

Posted on Dec 30, 2010 5:33 PM

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Q: Where is my account picture stored?

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  • by Kappy,

    Kappy Kappy Dec 30, 2010 6:01 PM in response to d6d24r94
    Level 10 (270,831 points)
    Desktops
    Dec 30, 2010 6:01 PM in response to d6d24r94
    /Home/Pictures/Photo Booth/ folder.
  • by d6d24r94,

    d6d24r94 d6d24r94 Dec 30, 2010 6:34 PM in response to Kappy
    Level 3 (610 points)
    Dec 30, 2010 6:34 PM in response to Kappy
    There's nothing in my Photo Booth folder but I still see the Account picture in System Preferences and iChat.
  • by Kappy,

    Kappy Kappy Dec 30, 2010 6:49 PM in response to d6d24r94
    Level 10 (270,831 points)
    Desktops
    Dec 30, 2010 6:49 PM in response to d6d24r94
    Look in /Home/Library/Images/iChat Recent Pictures/ folder. Looks like they moved it.
  • by d6d24r94,

    d6d24r94 d6d24r94 Dec 31, 2010 7:05 AM in response to Kappy
    Level 3 (610 points)
    Dec 31, 2010 7:05 AM in response to Kappy
    Wow, I still can't find it. There is no "Images" or "Pictures" folder in my Home/Library directory, neither in the Macintosh HD/Library directory. I tried searching Spotlight for "iChat Recent Pictures" but nothing was returned.

    Is anything changed in Snow Leopard 10.6.5?
  • by Barney-15E,

    Barney-15E Barney-15E Dec 31, 2010 7:47 AM in response to d6d24r94
    Level 9 (50,047 points)
    Mac OS X
    Dec 31, 2010 7:47 AM in response to d6d24r94
    [Take a look at this|http://superuser.com/questions/56413/where-does-the-mac-store-account-pict ures]. When I use the dscl command on mine, it tells me it is the orange.tif file, which it is not.

    I had successfully extracted my user photo in a similar manner, but I can't find anything but the above reference.
  • by d6d24r94,

    d6d24r94 d6d24r94 Dec 31, 2010 8:01 AM in response to Barney-15E
    Level 3 (610 points)
    Dec 31, 2010 8:01 AM in response to Barney-15E
    Yeah I tried those commands in Terminal, but it still couldn't find it. Perhaps it got deleted or something. It's not the end of the world, I can just take another one in Photo Booth.

    Thanks for all your guys' help.
  • by andyBall_uk,

    andyBall_uk andyBall_uk Dec 31, 2010 8:03 AM in response to Barney-15E
    Level 7 (20,495 points)
    Dec 31, 2010 8:03 AM in response to Barney-15E
    , it tells me it is the orange.tif file, which it is not.

    that sounds like you're seeing the Picture attribute rather than JPEGPhoto .
  • by Barney-15E,

    Barney-15E Barney-15E Dec 31, 2010 8:10 AM in response to andyBall_uk
    Level 9 (50,047 points)
    Mac OS X
    Dec 31, 2010 8:10 AM in response to andyBall_uk
    I think you're correct, Andy. I didn't go to the effort to extract the image like the post talks about.
    I had done this previously, but I think it was when it was stored in NetInfo db.
  • by Russa,

    Russa Russa Dec 31, 2010 8:23 AM in response to d6d24r94
    Level 4 (1,325 points)
    Dec 31, 2010 8:23 AM in response to d6d24r94
    It really is much simpler..

    The current or historical Account photos are physically in System Preferences/System/Accounts.

    Click on your Account photo and it will allow you to "edit" it. You may also "choose" a new picture from any location where a photo or graphic resides.

    So your original Account photo could be anywhere you originally stored it.. in iPhoto, or simply a JPEG sitting in a random folder or perhaps your desktop.

    You can take a new photo by clicking your Account photo, choose edit, and click "Take photo snap shot".
  • by jsd2,Solvedanswer

    jsd2 jsd2 Dec 31, 2010 8:24 AM in response to Barney-15E
    Level 5 (6,210 points)
    Dec 31, 2010 8:24 AM in response to Barney-15E
    I just tried using the second method given in that article, and it did seem to work:
    -----------------------
    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
    --------------------

    Since a 320x320 image would be too small for many purposes, it would be preferable to look first for the actual photo in ~/Library/Images/iChat Recent Pictures/.

    I constructed the following "generic" command from the one given in the article. When copy-pasted directly into Terminal and run without modification, it creates a small file named MyAccountPic.jpg on the current user's Desktop:

    dscl . -read /Users/`id -un` JPEGPhoto | tail -1 | xxd -r -p > ~/Desktop/MyAccountPic.jpg
  • by d6d24r94,

    d6d24r94 d6d24r94 Dec 31, 2010 9:08 AM in response to jsd2
    Level 3 (610 points)
    Dec 31, 2010 9:08 AM in response to jsd2
    Wow, that worked. Thanks a lot!
  • by jsd2,

    jsd2 jsd2 Dec 31, 2010 10:02 AM in response to d6d24r94
    Level 5 (6,210 points)
    Dec 31, 2010 10:02 AM in response to d6d24r94
    Glad it worked! Now I have to study it more to understand why it worked..