Simple Local Avatars

What the author says it does

Adds an avatar upload field to user profiles if the current user has media permissions. Generates requested sizes on demand just like Gravatar! Simple and lightweight.

Just edit a user profile, and scroll down to the new “Avatar” field. The plug-in will take care of cropping and sizing!

• Stores avatars in the “uploads” folder where all of your other media is kept.
• Has a simple, native interface.
• Fully supports Gravatar and default avatars if no local avatar is set for the user – but also allows you turn off Gravatar.
• Generates the requested avatar size on demand (and stores the new size for efficiency), so it looks great, just like Gravatar!
• Lets you decide whether lower privilege users (subscribers, contributors) can upload their own avatar.
• Enables rating of local avatars, just like Gravatar.

Support Level

Simple Local Avatars’ support level is marked as stable. 10up is not planning to develop any new features for this, but will still respond to bug reports and security concerns. We welcome PRs, but any that include new features should be small and easy to integrate and should not include breaking changes. We otherwise intend to keep this tested up to the most recent version of WordPress.

The opening of the plugin's own description. The full text, installation notes and changelog are on its WordPress.org page.

Questions the author answers

Latest changelog entry

2.8.6 – 2026-02-17

• Changed: Bump WordPress “tested up to” version 6.9 (props @peterwilsoncc, @dkotter via #352).
• Changed: Consider get_avatar() wrapper function get_simple_local_avatar() escaped (props @peterwilsoncc, @dkotter via #358).
• Changed: Consider wp_verify_nonce() as auto-sanitized (props @peterwilsoncc, @dkotter via #358).
• Fixed: Ensure form data is unslashed as required (props @peterwilsoncc, @dkotter via #358).
• Security: (Hardening) Ensure user has manage_option cap before saving default avatar (props @peterwilsoncc, @dkotter via #358).