How do I get by buddy avatars back in Messages?

Question

Level 1

1 points

How do I get by buddy avatars back in Messages?

After updating to Yosemite, all my buddy icons/avatars no longer show up. I only get a circle with a head silhouette or a circle with initials. I would rather have the buddy icons. I don't see an option to enable them.

i checked ~/library/caches/com.apple.messages/pictures and all the icons are saved their. I enabled to show them in conversations from the View menu. However, the icons still do not show up in the collective messages window that holds all the conversations. Is this just a new "feature" in Yosemite?

Any suggestions?

OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.1)

Posted on Jan 15, 2015 8:40 AM

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Answer 1

Eric Root

Level 10

685,251 points

Jan 15, 2015 12:36 PM in response to Bumpty

Are their avatars showing in Contacts?

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Answer 2

Jan 15, 2015 12:52 PM in response to Bumpty

Hi,

If you display the Buddy Lists then these have the icons from the Servers (as stored in the cache).

The Chat window in Yosemite pulls them from the Contacts app.

Highlight them in the Buddy List then use the Buddies Menu to Show Info. (NOT the Show Contact Card option)

Use this to use the Buddy Pic.

This will work for AIM, Jabber (including Google and Facebook) and Yahoo Buddies.

For iMessages you will just have to make sure the Contact Card has a pic.

8:52 pm Thursday; January 15, 2015

 iMac 2.5Ghz i5 2011 (Mavericks 10.9)
 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

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Answer 3

Bumpty Author

Level 1

1 points

Jan 15, 2015 1:45 PM in response to Ralph-Johns-UK

oh geez. that works, but geez. i literally have hundreds of buddies.

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Answer 4

Jan 15, 2015 1:51 PM in response to Bumpty

Hi,

Yes there are many issue like this in the current version of Messages where it ignores the away it has done it for years.

I started in iChat with AIM and Bonjour and later jabber at iChat 3.

The Address Book always Added Buddy pics to Buddies in the Address Book seemingly automatically.

Now we have to jump though hoops to get it back to what we want.

The other way is not much better:-

Display Buddy list

Display Pictures Cache.

Open Contacts.

Go though all Contacts cards.

Using the Buddy list for comparison drag the correct Pic to the Correct Buddy (it will do this with out using the Edit button)

It will depend which method you find faster.

for the Points.

9:50 pm Thursday; January 15, 2015

 iMac 2.5Ghz i5 2011 (Mavericks 10.9)
 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

Reply