Avatar in iMessage notification - Mac

Hi,

So Notifications is not showing the Avatar ...

Try changing each setting in the System Preferences > Notifications for Messages

i.e start with setting it to NONE for the Notifications then Quit Messages.

Restart Messages and try a test iMessages from your iPhone (Manually enter in your Apple ID)

Repeat for Banners and the Alerts.

Also try the tick boxes one at a time lower down.

What you are trying to do with this is Write to the .plist that holds the info so that it is changed and held.

If it does not work we may need to make sure you have Permissions to Write to that .plist

It seems the .plist responsible is called com.apple.ncprefs.plist

8:38 pm Tuesday; May 2, 2017

Hi,

Glad to hear that you found a solution.

8:06 pm Wednesday; May 3, 2017

Hi,

On the whole if you delete a .plist and then restart the app then the relevant .plist is recreated.

The other issue is that you have to be in /Library/Preferences and this Library is normally Hidden.

Go to a Finder window and select the Little House icon for your Home Folder.

Then use the View Menu whilst Holding down the ALT key. The Home Library will then appear in the Menu list.

8:26 pm Friday; July 7, 2017

HI,

Running Sierra here as well and I would beg to differ.

This was a "call" sent from my iPhone (using the iPhone Number to send) specifically to the Apple ID.

The iMessage appeared on my MacBook Pro and iPad and well as the sync copy on the iPhone.

Of course the Contact has to have a picture to show.

The one shown by the Notifications seems to be smaller that the one used in Messages itself or in the Contacts app:-

(I use three cards to distinguish between sending from three Computers - hence Ralph Johns-iMac on this one).

In the past iChat would store Buddy Pics in /Library/Caches/iChat/Pictures

This has become ~/Library/Caches/com.apple.Messages/Pictures

The pictures in here are .jpg copies of what was sent over AIM or Jabber/Google

If the pic was distorted in any way they did not show up in Buddy Lists and Chats.

Unfortunately Messages does not use this for iMessages contacts.

But the possibility of a damaged pic for your Contact that cannot be made smaller by Notifications is a possibility.

I will also ask the Hosts to remove your email.

8:06 pm Sunday; July 9, 2017

Humm,

Did not realise the whole conversation was on a pic.

9:25 pm Sunday; July 9, 2017

Hi,

Make a Buddy List the "Front" window of Messages then use the View Menu > Show Pictures.

10:09 pm Friday; July 28, 2017

Hi,

Did you try turning Off Notifications for Messages and then restarting the computer similar to the Solved Post ?

(and turning on again after the restart)

8:35 pm Saturday; July 29, 2017

Hi,

The Jabber/Google one are sent from the server and override the one in Contacts.

It's nothing new as iChat did and Messages has always done for the AIM, Jabber and Yahoo Accounts (although the Yahoo is not more).

The iMessages are pulled from the Contacts app.

It should be that once Message has a picture for someone then the Notifications should show it.

However it is not clear that Notifications checks this with Messages first as the app can be Quit/Closed and the Notifications still show.

This would suggest the issue is between Notification and Contacts.

9:32 pm Sunday; July 30, 2017

Hi,

If the pics appear in Contacts and in Messages but not in Notifications then the issue is with the Notifications App and it's .plist

9:33 pm Wednesday; August 9, 2017

I have quite the same problem, I can't see the profile picture for any of the contacts when a Message notification is shown (but I see it for the other Jabber account I have). I'm sure the avatars are correctly set since I see them on iCloud.com contacts; I tried all the techniques described in this thread (like deleting the "com.apple.ncprefs.plist" file, I rebooted also, many times during the tests session) and something more like refreshing cashes and other files but without result. I know it's not a real problem but I'd really like to solve it, "going crazy" as the starter said 😉

Thank you but I correctly see avatars both in the contact list and in the conversations window. I can't see them just in the notifications (like in the first picture of this thread) and only for the Messages/iCloud account but for all contacts.

Yes, tried that too. Unfortunately still no avatars. The really strange thing is that I have two accounts: a Jabber account for Google Hangouts and the iCloud account for iMessages/SMS; I see avatars in notification for Jabber but not for iCloud… I'm puzzled.

Yes, I agree. I tried to reset the images and they changed correctly (also on iCloud) but it didn't fix the problem. I tried to tinker with some contacts related plist files in the Library but it didn't work either, maybe I didn't work on the right files.

Hi!, I've same problem. how can you create the new plist? can you give me a detail