Cannot set custom profile avatar in Brave → inconsistent with other Chromium-based browsers

[sv0]

Summary

Brave currently does not allow users to set a custom profile avatar, limiting usability and personalization in multi-profile setups.

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Problem Statement

In real-world usage, especially with multiple profiles (e.g. work, private, testing), the inability to assign a custom avatar makes it harder to quickly distinguish between profiles.

The predefined avatar set is limited and does not scale well when users rely on visual identification as part of their workflow.

This leads to:

• reduced clarity when switching profiles
• increased cognitive load
• higher likelihood of selecting the wrong profile

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Real-World Use Cases

• Work vs. Private separation
  Users managing multiple contexts cannot visually distinguish profiles efficiently.

• Professional environments
  When using multiple accounts (e.g. different clients), custom avatars help avoid mistakes.

• Power users / testing setups
  Users running several parallel profiles lose an important orientation mechanism.

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Current Behavior

• Only predefined avatars are available
• No option to upload or assign a custom image

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Expected Behavior

Users should be able to:

• set a custom image as profile avatar
• visually distinguish profiles at a glance
• use avatars as part of an efficient multi-profile workflow

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Comparison

All other Chromium-based browsers (not to say almost all browser in general) allow more flexible profile identification or customization options.

This creates an inconsistency in expected behavior for users migrating to Brave.

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Impact

While this may seem like a minor cosmetic feature, it has real usability implications:

• affects daily workflows for multi-profile users
• introduces unnecessary friction
• reduces efficiency and clarity

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Proposed Solution

• Allow users to upload or assign a custom image as profile avatar
• Integrate this into the existing profile management UI
• Maintain fallback to default avatars if needed
• User avoiding brave - at least in my surrounding

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Closing

This feature would significantly improve usability for users relying on multiple profiles and align Brave more closely with user expectations for modern browser workflows.

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References

Profile picture (right corner)

Hello Brave developer team, I would like to suggest a feature in your browser. The people menu in the right corner, there is no way of making it a custom icon such as my Facebook profile picture. 2nd Why don’t you make a brave-logo-option available? Your logo is gorgeous and i would like to use your logo as my browser profile picture. Thanks

Custom icons in v1.0.0 and above

Description of the issue: There was a discussion about avatars but now that topic is closed: [ Is it possible to have a custom photo in the profile icon in the top right of Brave?](Is it possible to have a custom photo in the profile icon in the top right of Brave?). The problem is that in version ^1.x of Brave, the avatars located in /Users/YourUserName/Library/Application Support/BraveSoftware/Brave-Browser/Avatars are no longer displayed as options in the icon picker. [00] [16] Brave V…

Custom avatars in profiles

Hi !!! I use multiple profiles (more than 20) and the possibility to use custom avatar images for quick identification purposes would be very appreciated. Thank you! Please vote and spread the word

Allow to pick any icons as avatar for profile

• github issue 13182

[Mattches]

Well written feedback. That said I would certainly put this in the Brave Feature Requests category rather than support – and remove the Bug tag because it’s not a bug.

@sv0

Comparison

All other Chromium-based browsers (not to say almost all browser in general) allow more flexible profile identification or customization options.

This creates an inconsistency in expected behavior for users migrating to Brave.

Just a smidge of pushback on this bit – it’s actually not something that most browsers allow (surprisingly).

In Chrome, avatars are pre-defined:

MS Edge’s avatars are also pre-defined:

Opera doesn’t allow you to change the icon at all it looks like (I think maybe you can if you have an account and sign in?):

Vivaldi of course lets you because they let you customize literally anything:

So yes, while I don’t disagree with you that allowing custom avatars would be ideal, I think its worth noting that this is not actually uncommon – it’s not like Brave is the “only browser” that doesn’t allow you to do this.

[sv0]

Thanks for the response, but I have to push back on the core argument.

You claim that ‘most browsers don’t allow this’ — but that’s simply incorrect. Here are screenshots from the four most widely used browsers, all showing a custom profile avatar in the toolbar:

Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Edge — all of them display a user-defined image. The user experience is consistent and clear: you know which profile you’re in at a glance.

In Brave, the end result for the user is identical regardless of whether the technical reason is ‘no real profile system’ or ‘profile system without upload support’: no custom avatar possible.

Regarding the bug tag: a bug is commonly defined as behavior that deviates from expected or established norms. When every major browser — Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Edge — supports custom profile avatars, the absence of this in Brave is a deviation from established, expected behavior. That qualifies as a bug from a user perspective, regardless of how it’s classified internally.

I’d hope Brave’s community support exists to surface real issues to the team, not to minimize them. And frankly, I’m not sure that dismissing straightforward UX feedback this way is in the best interest of the company or the product’s continued development.

Iam trying to help here - for free.

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That said — I genuinely really like Brave and want to see it improve. This feedback comes from a place of goodwill, not frustration with you personally. I hope it’s taken in that spirit.

[Mattches]

Yeah I take your point, but the custom images you’re showing are associated with your account and require you to sign in – which requires you provide them with information about you. Brave does not have any account sign in at this time and doesn’t require any information about you.

Again, I agree that we should allow custom avatar images and have pushed for us to make this change in the past. I just think its relevant to note the difference between profile image that is only associated with your browser profile vs one that is associated with a specific account you sign into.

@sv0

Regarding the bug tag: a bug is commonly defined as behavior that deviates from expected or established norms. When every major browser — Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Edge — supports custom profile avatars, the absence of this in Brave is a deviation from established, expected behavior. That qualifies as a bug from a user perspective, regardless of how it’s classified internally.

If you use that same logic, then another browser behavior that has (unfortunately) become an established norm is tracking/collecting/selling your browsing data. Brave doesn’t collect, store, send or share any of your browsing data without explicit consent to do so and anything you do share is obfuscated/anonymous and can’t be traced back to you. Would you also call that a bug? Probably not.

The absence of a feature (or the addition of one) that another software has doesn’t qualify as a “bug” because different software deviate in a variety of different ways (and that’s a good thing) – those deviations are features of the individual software. The bit about “established norms and expected behavior” refers to norms/behaviors of the software you’re using, rather than a comparison between all other related softwares.

A more accurate definition of a “bug” in [any] software would be something like “an error, flaw, or unintended behavior in a program that causes it to produce incorrect results, behave unpredictably, or not function as intended”.

[sv0]

Thanks for the more detailed response — and genuinely appreciated that you’ve pushed for this internally. That’s exactly the kind of community-to-team feedback loop that makes a difference.

On the bug vs. feature debate — I’d rather not get lost in definitions. The point is simple and it’s a user perspective, not a technical one: I open Brave, I cannot tell my profiles apart at a glance the way I can in every other browser I use. That’s the gap.

We’re clearly on the same side here. Hope it lands with the team.

[100WattWalrus]

Just wanted to chime in on this consolidated conversation because this has been a bugbear for me for years. I have similar use cases (different browser profiles for different clients and different purposes, e.g. separating shopping and social), and would really like to see Brave take the lead on a feature like this. It’s very much in Brave’s wheelhouse, and would be a fantastic way for the app to stand out even more among Chromium browsers, and browsers in general.

@Mattches is right that in other browsers, the only way to do this is by having a profile picture on an account, and logging into that account — UPSHOT: less privacy.

HOWEVER, ages ago (back when Chrome avatars were little colored heads), it was possible to add your own avatars to Chrome — for a while anyway. In Chrome, some of my profiles still have custom avatars from 10(?) years ago.

To me, the real question is this: What reasons are there for not doing it?

My guess would be that at some point Chromium changed where avatars live, and did so in a way that makes customization far more difficult — especially if those avatars are to be synced across devices.

I know that at some point it was possible to dig into the app’s files and add your own. (On Mac, it was hand-editing /Application Support/BraveSoftware/Brave-Browser/Local State). But as far as I can tell, that’s no longer the case, and even if it were, it would be difficult to sync those custom avatars to mobile, where the structure might be different.

In other words, if it were easy, someone would have done it by now.

Of course, making difficult improvements to the Chromium base is something Brave does well, so I hope enough of the Brave team will someday see the value in this, and make it happen.

Personally, I’ve been asking for this since at least 2019, when previous hacks stopped working.

[privacy092]

I’ve been waiting for this feature too. This is valuable for heavy users like us. This is a UX issue we are having. The icons Brave offers right now are hard to differentiate at a glance. Yes, a name is displayed alongside it, but hey, people looks at the icon first. Honestly if this feature is going to get pushed back years later again, perhaps at least consider updating the icons to distinct recognizable designs.

[289wk]

Study: ‘What's the latest avatar directory? And what image format?’

Notice the avatar list link at: ‘What's the latest avatar directory? And what image format? - #3 by coolaj86’

The ‘avatar list’ from GitHub > Brave > avatarlist.txt (792 Bytes)

You need a folder named Avatars (you would create it) at:

• MacOS users: ~/Library/Application Support/BraveSoftware/Brave-Browser/Avatars
• Windows OS users: %localappdata%\BraveSoftware\Brave-Browser\User Data\Avatars

Also create as a reminder for yourself, a list of the avatars you will use for substitution, for example:

avatar_edgy_brave.png - your file → state_flag.png renamed to: avatar_edgy_brave.png
avatar_edgy_ocean.png - your file → state_flower.png renamed to: avatar_edgy_ocean.png
. . .
avatar_edgy_ninja.png - your default user profile avatar might not be available for substitution?

… because you really need to keep track of things. So, in our example, let us say you are using Windows OS. In the Avatars folder, you would have placed your substitute .png files (with names modified):

• Windows OS users: %localappdata%\BraveSoftware\Brave-Browser\User Data\Avatars\avatar_edgy_brave.png
• Windows OS users: %localappdata%\BraveSoftware\Brave-Browser\User Data\Avatars\avatar_edgy_ocean.png

Start up Brave Browser and go to brave://settings/manageProfile in order to examine the table of 35 avatars.

In the following table that reflects that avatar icon array, instead of using the avatar name that you discover by hovering (egs.: Avatar Edgy Brave), I have placed what would be the filename base (without the .png filename extension) → avatar_edgy_brave … re your substitutions work.

The 1st row, 1st column avatar (avatar_edgy_rewards) is RESERVED and that is NOT available for substitution.

Row	Column 1	Column 2	Column 3	Column 4	Column 5	Column 6
1	avatar_edgy_rewards	avatar_edgy_brave	avatar_edgy_ocean	avatar_edgy_grass	avatar_edgy_corn	avatar_edgy_royal
2	avatar_edgy_ninja	avatar_paladin_rewards	avatar_paladin_brave	avatar_paladin_ocean	avatar_paladin_grass	avatar_paladin_corn
3	avatar_paladin_royal	avatar_paladin_ninja	avatar_gleam_rewards	avatar_gleam_brave	avatar_gleam_ocean	avatar_gleam_grass
4	avatar_gleam_corn	avatar_gleam_royal	avatar_gleam_ninja	avatar_oval_rewards	avatar_oval_brave	avatar_oval_ocean
5	avatar_oval_grass	avatar_oval_corn	avatar_oval_royal	avatar_oval_ninja	avatar_bonbon_rewards	avatar_bonbon_brave
6	avatar_bonbon_ocean	avatar_bonbon_grass	avatar_bonbon_corn	avatar_bonbon_royal	avatar_bonbon_ninja

I suggest that you create a new Brave Browser user profile for TESTING.

I took a file named US_Flag.png that I have, and renamed that file to avatar_oval_ocean.png … and placed that file here:

~/Library/Application Support/BraveSoftware/Brave-Browser/Avatars/avatar_oval_ocean.png

Exit / Quit Brave Browser. Paused. Started Brave Browser. In the brave://settings/manageProfile window, I selected the Avatar Oval Ocean icon - Row 4 Column 6. (NOTE: Brave’s avatar icons in that settings page, will NOT change ← you will NOT see your icon there.)

And again: Exit / Quit Brave Browser. Paused. Started Brave Browser. And with Brave Browser running:

In the Brave Browser (v1.89.145) profile picker (brave://profile-picker) at startup:

As the new user profile’s avatar in the upper right area of the Brave Browser window:

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[MasterLink]

Um, there’s no Avatar folder, nor any of those files.

(Sorted alphabetically.)

In fact, one trip to the Inspector shows that’s not even the names of the icon resources at all:

Which for example, can have one loaded directly in your browser via: brave://theme/IDR_PROFILE_AVATAR_56@1x which would be the “Default” icon.

If I had to wager, THIS is where those resources/assets actually live:

In fact, this behavior matches Chromium itself, same names, none of those names you mentioned:

This is simply wildly outdated information pulled from 3 years ago, and you chose not to test if that still even works. This isn’t the first time I’ve had to speak up and point out you are NOT testing what you are telling people. Users would appreciate that, you know? Do test. And for the sake of being honest, calling someone out is NOT bullying, it’s correcting the facts, and you didn’t state the facts as they are in 2026 regarding Chromium as a whole.

But I also do need to state that Chromium itself, does NOT let you change profile pictures to just anything you desire. It is true that SOME Chromium based browsers do such as Edge, but in actual Chromium, that’s simply not true.

I feel if people actually tried Chromium as it is a bit more, they might understand why some things are simply the way they are.

[sv0]

@privacy092: yes, that would be at least a mitigation.