Synchronize User Profile Pictures (v 2.1)

Owned by Almuth Boehme [Communardo]
Last updated: Apr 07, 2020 by Friederike Kneuper (Deactivated)
2 min read

For the following steps you need Jira Administrator permissions.

Synchronize User Profile Pictures

The synchronization of user pictures is supported from a central storage. You can find the configuration under the heading “Special Elements” in the User Profile Settings > Profile Elements (choose Cog icon > Add-ons at top right of the screen or use the keyboard shortcut: press 'g g' then type 'Profile Elements').

Start Synchronization of User Pictures

Click "Edit" to open the configuration dialog for the picture synchronization.

Image 1: Configure User Profile Picture synchronization (click to enlarge)


To synchronize user pictures from a central user directory you have to enter the attribute name where the picture is stored. The name of the attribute is typically “thumbnailPhoto” for Active Directory and “jpegPhoto” for OpenLDAP. You may set multiple attributes separated by a comma, i.e. “thumbnailPhoto,jpegPhoto”. This is useful, if you have configured multiple directories of different types.

The synchronization is based on the following features

  • While the synchronization process is running a picture of a user is read out, cropped to a square format and if necessary scaled-down.
  • Pictures are stored in standard size used in JIRA.
  • If a picture is updated in the picture storage, the user picture will be overwritten in JIRA during the next synchronization.
  • Users can upload own pictures, but after a new synchronization the picture from the picture storage is displayed again.
    • (info) If there is no picture for the user in the external repository defined, the users uploaded image will be preserved through synchronization tasks.

Stop Synchronization of User Pictures

Leave the field “Attribute Name” blank if no synchronization is required or if you want to stop the synchronization.


Information about Performance

On systems with many users (1000+) the first synchronization may take very long (several hours) and can impact your systems performance. To improve the process or in case of synchronization errors it is recommended to enable “Login Synchronization” for a couple of days.  


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