I was helping a friend set up Google Workspace (formerly G Suite) and when we attempted to change the Gmail profile picture, it pops up an error like this:
“An embedded page at docs.google.com says: Sorry! We could not save your profile photo. Please try again later.”
Looks like Google doesn’t allow us to save or change profile images, or is it?
Anyway, after some trials and errors, I found a solution and fixed this issue. Here, I’m going to share a step-by-step guide showing you how I did it. It’s actually quite simple.
Note: this tutorial was originally written before Google changed the G Suite name to Google Workspace. And they changed the UI/US a bit. But the steps remain the same even though the screenshots below shows “G Suite” instead of “Google Workspace”.
Step 1: Log in to your Gmail and click on the 9-dot icon next to the G Suite logo.
Step 2: Scroll down to find Admin and click it.
Step 3: Click on the Settings icon in Google Admin to continue.
Step 4: Select Directory and then Directory settings.
Step 5: Under Directory settings, click the Profile editing option.
Step 6: Click on the checkbox next to Photo.
Note: by default, this option is not checked. That’s the reason why it won’t allow you to save your Gmail profile photo. It’s all because of this “weird” setting!
Step 7: Make sure to hit SAVE at the bottom right corner.
Step 8: Now go back to your Gmail, click on the profile image icon.
Step 9: Upload your desired profile image.
Step 10: Highlight your uploaded image, and click Set as a profile photo.
The “Sorry! We could not save your profile photo. Please try again later.” error should not pop up, meaning your profile photo has been saved.
But it might take Google or Gmail a bit of time to sync this change to its product interfaces. What to do?
An easy way to test whether your new profile photo is alive is by checking a specific email conversation you’ve sent.
First, refresh the Gmail page.
Then, go to the Sent box and click on any email, see your new profile photo?!
That’s it, I hope you find this guide useful. If your Google Workspace or Gmail profile picture still doesn’t show up or you can’t save it, leave a comment below and I’d be happy to look into it.
Meanwhile, I am hoping Google could change the default setting on Directory Settings and allow Google Workspace users to change profile photos as they want, it’s a small tweak but will save us lots of time.
You can join me and submit a change request following this Google support article.
