Messages App Contact Picture Wrong!?

Check in System Preferences > Users & Groups.

HI,

By Default Messages will pick the pic that was in place in iChat (In the Buddy Lists)

The next choice and a New Fresh set up is to pick the User and Groups pic which also get put on the Contacts > My Card (Formerly the Address Book).

However after set up you can change all three places independently.

In Messages you have to have another Account Enabled (the Bonjour one will do)

This will put a Buddy List up (and list it in the Window Menu).

The Buddy pic here is a drop down to Recent Pics (your Wife may have altered it ?).

In the Contacts list find the My Card (it should be the one with the Head and Shoulders icon.

This should be your details (and not your wife's).

The pic may be being pulled from here if none was set in Messages (And there is no historical one from iChat)

So from a new set up it could be User and Groups > Contacts (Address Book) > Messages.

It could be a Change to the Contacts > My Card prior to launching Messages

It could also be an historical pic from iChat

It could be your wife changed it in your Messages Buddy list.

If you have her Account set up in Messages (I.e AIM or Jabber) and only iMessages for "yourself" then it is possible it is pulling the Buddy Pic from the server.

You can set pics At AIM or GoogleTalk for instance (Local Apps tend to override this.)

10:59 PM Saturday; September 29, 2012

Please, if posting Logs, do not post any Log info after the line "Binary Images for iChat"

 iMac 2.5Ghz 5i 2011 (Mountain Lion 10.8.2)
 G4/1GhzDual MDD (Leopard 10.5.8)
 MacBookPro 2Gb (Snow Leopard 10.6.8)
 Mac OS X (10.6.8),
 Couple of iPhones and an iPad
"Limit the Logs to the Bits above Binary Images."  No, Seriously

HI,

As I said someone could have put it there.

In Messages you now get 4 sub sections

Defaults which are pulled from two sources (the Mac Accounts pics and the iChat Icons (the Flags and stuff lower than those)

Recents

These are those that have been there and these are then stored in.

Hard drive (name)/Users/(your account)/Library/Images/iChat Recent Pictures

Faces taps in to iPhoto

Camera launches the camera (A bit like Photo Booth or the Mac Account Option at this point)

What you used to be able to do here was select Edit and navigate anywhere on your hard drive for a new pic.

Now you cannot.

However you can drag any pic to the Buddy Pic spot and then edit that.

for the points

8:31 PM Sunday; September 30, 2012

Please, if posting Logs, do not post any Log info after the line "Binary Images for iChat"

 iMac 2.5Ghz 5i 2011 (Mountain Lion 10.8.2)
 G4/1GhzDual MDD (Leopard 10.5.8)
 MacBookPro 2Gb (Snow Leopard 10.6.8)
 Mac OS X (10.6.8),
 Couple of iPhones and an iPad
"Limit the Logs to the Bits above Binary Images."  No, Seriously

I just had this same problem and this thread was helpful in solving my problem, i'm posting because the last comment is no longer accurate; you can in-fact pic any photo with the latest version of Messages.app

You simply pick the 'Other' option In the change my picture window shown below.

HI,

Actually the "Recents" items is also out of date now.

That position is still there if you upgraded from Lion or earlier to Mountain Lion and Messages as it is the place iChat kept it's "Recents".

The Address Book or Contacts as the front end is now called also keeps a similar folder in /Users/(your accounts)/Library/Caches/com.apple.AddressBook

Someone did post where the combined "Recents" items was held but I have forgotten already.

EDIT 7:42 PM

Found it. It is here

~/Library/Containers/com.apple.ImageKit.RecentPictureService/Data/Library/Images /Recent Pictures

7:39 PM Friday; March 8, 2013

Please, if posting Logs, do not post any Log info after the line "Binary Images for iChat"

 iMac 2.5Ghz 5i 2011 (Mountain Lion 10.8.2)
 G4/1GhzDual MDD (Leopard 10.5.8)
 MacBookPro 2Gb (Snow Leopard 10.6.8)
 Mac OS X (10.6.8),
 Couple of iPhones and an iPad
"Limit the Logs to the Bits above Binary Images."  No, Seriously

Message was edited by: Ralph Johns (UK) 7:44 PM

Is there anyway to set the Messages picture to whatever your current contact picture is? It changes frequently sicne I have my card linked to facebook.

Hi,

Sorry about the delay as I have been away for a few days.

By default the app, be it iChat or Messages, will take the pic from the Address Card indicated by the Head an Shoulders icon (My Card) in the Address Book or Contacts app in Mountain Lion (At first this will also be taken from any Pic you choose as the Login Pic)

Particularly with iChat and Buddy lists the Buddy Pic is then the Pic used in Messages.

(This does mean that you can set the Login pic the Contacts App Pic and the Buddy List pic within Messages to be different pictures).

In Messages All the Buddy Pics such as the Facebook one will have the same pic.

Now you can have several computers and each could have a different Buddy Pic.

In this case the last one to log in will be the one the Buddies see.

The same is true if you have different App capable of logging in to the relevant server.

So your Buddy Pic may change, as far as you Buddies are concerned as a different app is putting up the Pic.

However as soon as Messages logs in it should revert to the one shown in Messages.

One thing I cannot check is the System Preferences > Mail Contacts and Calendars pane > Facebook link option.

I am not sure if this pulls the latest Account pic and uses that in Messages over the Buddy Pic you have chosen.

7:49 pm Friday; August 9, 2013

 iMac 2.5Ghz 5i 2011 (Mountain Lion 10.8.4)
 G4/1GhzDual MDD (Leopard 10.5.8)
 MacBookPro 2Gb (Snow Leopard 10.6.8)
 Mac OS X (10.6.8),
 Couple of iPhones and an iPad
"Limit the Logs to the Bits above Binary Images."  No, Seriously

Obviously, if we've chosen a particular photo for our own contact card, we should be able to use the same for Messages, yet it is not available in any of those options.

Editing a recent photo will however allow you to drag an iPhoto, Aperature, or Photos photo into the edit window without having to export it from that application.

Hi,

It should be in the Linked section

The User and Groups picture, the My Card in the Contacts app and the Messages Buddy List can all be different.

The Linked one only seems to show the current My Card picture.

9:34 pm Friday; May 20, 2016

I'm using Messages 8.0. There is no "Linked" option and the photo I'm using for my contact card is not in recents. I have to either drag a photo onto the active edit widow or actively export a photo out of the photo application so Messages can call it up.

Hi,

Mountain Lion where this Thread is has Messages 7.x x (there are sub number sets)

Mavericks version is called version 8 all the way through despite some changes to the app (it never gets update number sets)

Yosemite also calls it Messages 8 even though there are further changes to the one in Mavericks.

El Capitan starts with version 9 - has Version 9.2 at the OS X 10.11.3 update - makes un-numbered changes at OS X 10.11.5

Sorry about the picture confusion

Yours probably looks more like this set from 2013

It used to be that as you set up the Mac you chose a Pic for the Account (the Rose in this picture)

That would be pulled through to the Contacts > My Card unless you changed it. (as in the Planet in this pic)

That would then in turn be pulled automatically to Messages.

The iMessages account does not have a picture you can change directly - it will use the Contacts App > My Card.

However when you enable the Bonjour Account (Or AIM, Jabber or Yahoo as well) and create a Buddy List you can edit a picture for that and the iMessages account will then use that.

From what you post for "Messages 8" is probably correct in that you have to find the pic and drag it to the selection/edit point

9:29 pm Saturday; May 21, 2016

No problem. I see this thread is about Mountain Lion. I'm on Mavericks, with Messages 8. The options are Defaults, Recents, Camera and Other.

Hi,

Ok so that is then before Yosemite tires to add Faces (I have never gotten that to work).

What shows up in "Other" ?

If the User account pic and the Contacts app pics are different it will probably be the Contacts > My Card pic.

7:14 pm Sunday; May 22, 2016