Real Simple Avatar gives your users a real profile picture on your WordPress site — without Gravatar and without cluttering your Media Library.

Users can upload their own photo or choose a preset avatar right from the front end. If no avatar is set, the plugin generates a clean, colourful SVG avatar from the user’s initials, so every user has a proper avatar from day one — no grey silhouettes.

It is built to stay tidy: when a user changes or removes their avatar, the previous file is deleted from the Media Library automatically. One user, one file, at one size — WordPress does not generate extra thumbnails for it.

Why people choose Real Simple Avatar

A local alternative to Gravatar — avatars live on your own site. No account required, no external request per avatar, no email hash sent to a third party.
No Media Library clutter — the old avatar attachment is removed automatically on replacement, on deletion, and when a user account is deleted. Saves disk space.
Automatic SVG initials — lightweight vector avatars with a background colour that stays the same for each user. As of 1.0.2 they are inlined into the page, with no extra request.
Front-end form — the [rsava_avatar_form] shortcode lets logged-in users change their avatar instantly (AJAX, no page reload, no admin access).
Preset avatars — show a grid of ready-made pictures. Replace the built-in set with your own, or disable photo uploads entirely and let users pick a preset only.
Strict size control — set the crop size (e.g. 240 × 240 px). Uploaded images are stored only at that size.
Configurable — allowed formats (PNG, JPG, JPEG, WebP, HEIC, HEIF, AVIF, GIF), maximum file size, initials palette and text colour.
Admin control — upload or remove any user’s avatar from the Edit User screen.
Clean uninstall — optionally remove all settings and uploaded avatars when the plugin is deleted.

A good fit for membership sites, forums, communities, multi-author blogs, and shops with customer accounts.

Compatibility

Tested with PHP 7.4, 8.0, 8.1, 8.2, 8.3, 8.4. Tested with WordPress 5.0 – 7.1

License

This plugin is licensed under the GPLv2 or later.