Page Text: ← Back
Base Request
Gravatar images may be requested just like a normal image, using an IMG tag. To get an image specific to a user, you must first calculate their email hash .
The most basic image request URL looks like this:
https://www.gravatar.com/avatar/HASH
where HASH is replaced with the calculated hash for the specific email address you are requesting. For example, here is my base URL:
https://www.gravatar.com/avatar/205e460b479e2e5b48aec07710c08d50
When wrapped in an IMG tag, that URL will produce:
If you require a file-type extension (some places do) then you may also add an (optional) .jpg extension to that URL:
https://www.gravatar.com/avatar/205e460b479e2e5b48aec07710c08d50.jpg
Size
By default, images are presented at 80px by 80px if no size parameter is supplied. You may request a specific image size, which will be dynamically delivered from Gravatar by using the s= or size= parameter and passing a single pixel dimension (since the images are square):
https://www.gravatar.com/avatar/205e460b479e2e5b48aec07710c08d50?s=200
You may request images anywhere from 1px up to 2048px, however note that many users have lower resolution images, so requesting larger sizes may result in pixelation/low-quality images.
Default Image
What happens when an email address has no matching Gravatar image? By default, this:
If you'd prefer to use your own default image (perhaps your logo, a funny face, whatever), then you can easily do so by supplying the URL to an image in the d= or default= parameter. The URL should be URL-encoded to ensure that it carries across correctly, for example:
To URL-encode a string in PHP, you can use something like this:
echo urlencode( 'https://example.com/images/avatar.jpg' );
When you include a default image, Gravatar will automatically serve up that image if there is no image associated with the requested email hash. There are a few conditions which must be met for default image URL:
MUST be publicly available (e.g. cannot be on an intranet, on a local development machine, behind HTTP Auth or some other firewall etc). Default images are passed through a security scan to avoid malicious content.
MUST be accessible via HTTP or HTTPS on the standard ports, 80 and 443, respectively.
MUST have a recognizable image extension (jpg, jpeg, gif, png)
MUST NOT include a querystring (if it does, it will be ignored)
In addition to allowing you to use your own image, Gravatar has a number of built in options which you can also use as defaults. Most of these work by taking the requested email hash and using it to generate a themed image that is unique to that email address. To use these options, just pass one of the following keywords as the d= parameter to an image request:
404: do not load any image if none is associated with the email hash, instead return an HTTP 404 (File Not Found) response
mp: (mystery-person) a simple, cartoon-style silhouetted outline of a person (does not vary by email hash)
identicon: a geometric pattern based on an email hash
monsterid: a generated 'monster' with different colors, faces, etc
wavatar: generated faces with differing features and backgrounds
retro: awesome generated, 8-bit arcade-style pixelated faces
robohash: a generated robot with different colors, faces, etc
blank: a transparent PNG image (border added to HTML below for demonstration purposes)