Gmail Account Picture for Other Email Accounts (Non-Gmail)

Recently we noted that Gmail shows our account photo besides our emails, very useful for long email trails, in similar fashion to how profile photos appear in a YouTube video comment section.

However, we also use Gmail to check email from other accounts and wanted to assign profile photos to those (non-Gmail) accounts as well. Googling around we found two methods:

use a different profile photo from the Google Account
- Method 1 – Create a New Google Account
use the same profile photo as the Google Account
- Method 2 – Include Email as an Alternate Email

Method 1 – Create a New Google Account

This method requires more effort, so the unique profile photo needs to be worth our while.

Go to https://accounts.google.com/SignUp
select “I’d rather use my own email address”
complete the sign-up process
set up profile photo for the account

With the profile photo in place, it ought to percolate through to our principal Gmail account. We haven’t verified this method ourselves, but we include it here for our own future reference.

Method 2 – Include Email as an Alternate Email

In order to use the same existing profile photo against our non-Gmail accounts, the process is much simpler.

Go to https://myaccount.google.com
select “Personal Info” in the navigation menu (left hand of screen)
expand the “Email” field (under Contact Info)
add the non-Gmail account as an Alternate Email

Again, with this in place, the profile photo is applied against our non-Gmail mail. This one we verified.