Microsoft 365 Profile images - Uncovering the mysteries of the missing user

Microsoft 365 Profile images are a key part of a user's identity in the modern workplace. They are used to identify people in emails, on chats and more. However, there are many mysteries surrounding profile images and why they can sometimes go missing. In this article, we'll explore the possible causes of missing profile images, and how to troubleshoot them. We'll also provide best practices for keeping your profile images up-to-date and consistent. We'll also explore the different types of profile images available and how to customize them to best represent your business or organization. Finally, we'll discuss how to leverage profile images to help create a more unified and recognizable identity across your organization.

What is user profiles?

Users profiles is a mysterious place, it’s a database of users from your AD, but mirrored to SharePoint, it’s also the foundation of Delve , it also provides additional fields that aren’t in the AD, for people to populate themselves, such as skills, education and projects you’ve worked on.

It does however seem like Microsoft is moving this stuff to other platforms, and slowly killing off delve, such as the pronouns feature ending up in the Azure AD, cover photos in Viva engage, and the whole myaccount page which as been getting overhauled. - *this is all my best guess, I have seen no official statements from Microsoft to back this up! - so take it with a grain of salt *

The profile photo issues

A common issue for quite some years now has been IT updating the profile photo in the Active Directory and it for some reason not syncing to SharePoint, this would give a super detached experience where you could see a user without an image, hover your mouse over them, have the profile card pop up only for them to have a picture in the card.

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Uncovering the mysteries of the missing user profile images · M365 - TL;DR