How to Change Your Profile Picture in Outlook (2026 Guide)
Your Outlook profile picture is the photo (or set of initials) that shows next to your name in email, on your account menu, and — because it’s tied to your Microsoft account — in Teams and the rest of Office. To change it, you open your account card in the top-right corner, click your photo, upload a new square image, and crop it. The catch most people hit isn’t the steps; it’s that the picture lives on your account, not in Outlook, so it syncs everywhere and can take a while to refresh.
Here’s how to change, update, or remove it in every version of Outlook in 2026.
The one thing to understand first
Your profile photo is not stored in Outlook. It’s stored on your Microsoft 365 account (work/school) or your Microsoft account (personal Outlook.com). That has two consequences:
- It propagates everywhere. Change it in Outlook and the same photo appears in Teams, Word, PowerPoint, SharePoint, and on your Microsoft account page — they all read from the same source.
- Your admin may control it. In many Microsoft 365 organizations, IT locks profile photos so they’re set centrally (often pulled from an HR system). If your “Change photo” option is missing or greyed out, that’s almost always why — see Troubleshooting.
So you can start from Outlook, Teams, or your account page; you’ll be editing the same picture.
1. New Outlook for Windows / Outlook on the Web
The new Outlook for Windows and Outlook on the web (outlook.office.com) work the same way.
- Click your profile photo (or your initials) in the top-right corner.
- In the account card that opens, click your photo again — or click My Microsoft 365 profile / My profile.
- Click the camera icon on the picture, or Change photo.
- Click Upload photo, pick a square image, then drag to reposition and use the zoom slider to crop inside the circle.
- Click Apply, then Save.
The picture updates on your account card right away; everywhere else catches up as caches refresh.
Tip: For a personal Outlook.com account, clicking your photo may take you to account.microsoft.com > Your info, where you click the camera icon under your name to Add a picture. Same photo, just hosted on the consumer side.
2. Classic Outlook for Windows
Classic Outlook doesn’t host the photo editor itself — it hands you off to your account page.
- Click File in the top-left.
- Click Office Account (sometimes labeled Account) in the left sidebar.
- Under your name and email at the top, click Change photo.
- This opens your Microsoft 365 profile in a browser. Click the camera icon, Upload a new photo, crop, and Save.
Because classic Outlook reads the photo from the same account, the new image appears next to your name once it syncs. There’s no separate “Outlook-only” picture to set.
3. Outlook for Mac
- In the menu bar, click Outlook > Settings (or click your account name/photo in the top corner).
- Open Accounts, select your account, or click My Profile.
- The Mac app also routes photo changes through your Microsoft 365 profile in the browser — click the camera/edit icon, upload a square image, crop, and Save.
As on Windows, the picture is account-level, so it matches what you see in Teams and Office.
4. Change it from Teams (it’s the same photo)
Since Teams and Outlook share the account photo, you can update it from whichever app is open:
- In Teams, click your profile picture (top-right).
- Click it again, or choose Edit image / Change picture.
- Upload a square photo and Save.
The change flows back to Outlook on the next refresh.
Remove your profile picture
Removing a photo reverts you to your initials on a colored circle (the default avatar).
- New Outlook / web / account page: open the photo editor (steps above), then look for Remove photo in the editor. On a personal account, go to account.microsoft.com > Your info > camera icon > Remove.
- Work/school accounts: if Remove photo isn’t offered, your admin has locked photos — you’ll need IT to clear it.
Note: There’s no separate “delete just the Outlook photo” option, because there’s no separate Outlook photo. Removing it removes it across Office.
Recommended image size and format
Outlook crops your photo into a circle, so square images work best:
| Spec | Recommendation |
|---|---|
| Shape | Square (1:1) — Outlook crops to a circle |
| Minimum size | 200 × 200 pixels |
| Recommended size | 240 × 240 to 648 × 648 pixels for a crisp result |
| File format | JPG or PNG |
| Max file size | Keep under ~4 MB (work accounts often cap around this) |
| Composition | Center your face; leave a little margin so the circular crop doesn’t cut you off |
A small, sharp, well-lit headshot reads far better at thumbnail size than a large group photo cropped down.
Quick Reference
| Version | Where to start | Path |
|---|---|---|
| New Outlook / Web | Top-right photo | Click photo > My profile > camera icon > Upload > crop > Save |
| Classic Outlook | Ribbon | File > Office Account > Change photo (opens browser) |
| Outlook for Mac | Account menu | My Profile > camera/edit icon (opens browser) |
| Personal Outlook.com | Browser | account.microsoft.com > Your info > camera icon |
| Remove photo | Photo editor | Remove photo (if your org allows it) |
Troubleshooting
My profile photo won’t update / the old photo still shows
This is almost always caching, not a failed change. Office, Teams, and Outlook cache profile photos aggressively, and the global address book refreshes on its own schedule.
- Give it time. The photo updates on your account card quickly, but can take from a few minutes up to 24–72 hours to propagate to Teams, the address book, and other people’s view of you.
- Sign out and back in to Outlook, or restart the app, to force a local refresh.
- Check Outlook on the web in a fresh browser tab — if the new photo shows there, the change worked and other surfaces just haven’t caught up.
- Clear the local cache: in classic Outlook, closing and reopening usually does it; for Teams, sign out fully and back in.
”Change photo” is greyed out or missing
Your Microsoft 365 administrator has locked profile photos for the organization. Many companies set photos centrally (often from an HR/identity system), which disables self-service changes. Ask your IT admin to update the photo for you or to enable user photo changes.
I changed it but it’s wrong everywhere except one app
That one app is still serving its cached copy. Sign out of that app specifically and back in. Each Office app keeps its own photo cache, so they refresh at slightly different times.
My personal account photo won’t save
On Outlook.com, set the photo at account.microsoft.com > Your info rather than from inside the mail window — it’s the authoritative place for the consumer account’s picture.
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