SharePoint Online: How to Enable User Profile Picture Change?

Requirement: Enable user profile picture change in SharePoint Online.

SharePoint Online: How to Enable User Profile Picture Change?

To change the user profile properties, we usually head on to:

1. SharePoint Online Admin Center >> Click on “More features” >> Open User profiles.
2. On the User profiles page, click on the “Manage User Profiles” link >> Search and get the required user.

However, there is no option to change other users’ profile pictures (unless you edit your-own profile!), even when you’re logged in as a SharePoint Administrator! The picture field just displays the “Only <user> can change this photo” message, and you can’t change the picture for other users. This is because User profile pictures are synched from the Active Directory (or Azure AD) to SharePoint Online. The SharePoint Online user profiles page doesn’t allow changing the user picture.

Enable User Profile Picture Change in SharePoint Online:

To enable user profile picture change, scroll down and locate the field “Picture Exchange Sync State” and set the value from “1” to “0” and then hit the “Save and close” button.

This enables the “Upload picture” button for the “Picture” column. Open the user profile again to upload a profile picture.

BTW,  End-users can change their own profile picture from “Delve” by login into any SharePoint site, clicking on the “Welcome Menu” in the top-right corner, choose “My Office Profile.” This takes them to their Delve site, where they change the profile picture.