So…

I sent an email to a friend recently; from my Hotmail account, to their Gmail account. “Why the stupid profile picture?” asks my friend. This is news to me, so I ask for a screenshot. Sure enough, next to my name is a stupid picture. God knows how many people I’d emailed with this.

After tearing my hair out trying to find out what was happening, I think I’d used said stupid picture ages ago on a GooglePlus account, which I’d used my hotmail email address to create. Now, I never wanted the confounded GooglePlus account, I don’t even know what it is. I’d simply registered with Youtube in order to comment etc.

So anyway, I’ve deleted said Youtube/GooglePlus account, yet it’s STILL happening. Where is Gmail getting this picture from? Or is hotmail sending it?

When did Google go from ‘best search-engine on the net’ to ‘evil dark-side tyrants’? Is it just me that doesn’t want everything connected?

Aaaargh! Rant over.

😡

Go into your gmail inbox. Top right there should be “the picture”.

Click on it and the option to “Change photo” should be available.

Sure, thanks. But I can’t do that for everyone else’s inbox?

Try it and see what happens, as far as google are concerned that picture is you. They will use it anywhere where they link the data content to you.

i.e. your friends gmail inbox, google see the email and somehow associate your hotmail message to you. They have a picture on file and so display it. If you change the google picture associated with you then that’s the one which should get displayed in the future.

Yeah, but I’ve deleted the google account and it’s still happening.

I don’t have a Gmail account btw.

Ah, I see.

No idea then 🙂

redthunder – Member

Yeah, I would post it here. Except google might then take all the stupid stuff I’ve ever said on here and ‘share’ it with my email contacts 🙄

It’s nowt special, just inappropriate really for an email address I mainly use for serious stuff.

Your friend could have told their phone to use their Google address book for contact details before you deleted the account, so there may be some sort of phone-web synchronisation going on.

redthunder – Member

Yeah, I would post it here. Except google might then take all the stupid stuff I’ve ever said on here and ‘share’ it with my email contacts

It’s nowt special, just inappropriate really for an email address I mainly use for serious stuff.

That’s true 🙁

sounds more like hotmail’s doing the trolling

It’s linked to you in your friends Gmail account. Other friends may have different pictures depending on how and when they synchronize.

miketually – Member
Your friend could have told their phone to use their Google address book for contact details before you deleted the account, so there may be some sort of phone-web synchronisation going on.

You mean ‘the recipient’ has the picture stored? Yeah I thought of that, so I asked said friend to delete me as a contact and then sent a new email. Picture comes through again. I also tried another mate’s gmail who I’d never emailed before and they got it too. The only thing I can think of is that google hasn’t actually deleted my old account, or it takes a certain amount of time to disappear.