Avatars play a big role in WordPress, whether you’re creating a theme or adding custom features. In this article, we’ll explore various methods to retrieve a user’s avatar in WordPress.
Usually, WordPress shows a Gravatar as the avatar, but the functions we’ll discuss can also work with plugins that replace Gravatar’s functions in WordPress.
How to Display Avatar for Currently Logged in User
Getting the avatar of the currently logged-in user in WordPress is simple using the function called get_avatar(). With this function, you can provide a user ID and avatar size to generate an image tag with the user’s avatar.
Additionally, there’s another function called get_avatar_url() that I’ve included as a code snippet. This function lets you obtain the URL of the user’s avatar, which you can use as needed.
<?php
// Ensure user is logged in
if( is_user_logged_in() ) {
// Display current logged in user's avatar (includes <img> tag)
echo get_avatar( get_current_user_id(), 96 );
// Display current logged in user's avatar URL
echo get_avatar_url( get_current_user_id(), array( 'size' => 96 ) );
}You can take the code snippet I provided and use it in various custom functions on your WordPress site. For instance, you can use it to display the logged-in user’s avatar in the header of a custom theme.
In the example function I shared earlier, I’ve also set the avatar size to 96. You can change the “96” to your desired height and width for the avatar. If you want a higher-resolution avatar, you can use 512, and for a lower-resolution one, you can use 32.
How to Display the Avatar for the Current Post Author
You can also easily obtain the avatar for any user ID using the get_avatar and get_avatar_url functions I mentioned earlier. This is useful for showing the avatar of the author of the current post.
By using the get_the_author_meta() function, we can retrieve the user ID of the current post’s author. This ID can then be used in our function to display the avatar of the current post’s author.
<?php // Display current post's author avatar (includes <img> tag) echo get_avatar( get_the_author_meta( 'ID' ), 96 ); // Display current post's author avatar URL echo get_avatar_url( get_the_author_meta( 'ID' ), array( 'size' => 96 ) );
Of course, remember to use this code snippet within the loop. Typically, wherever you’re placing it in your theme or function, it should function correctly.
I hope this post helped you understand how to utilize get_avatar in your WordPress development. If you have any questions about WordPress development or need help with WordPress code snippets, feel free to ask in the comments below.
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