Make and Change YouTube Profile Picture on Windows/Mac/Online
Last Updated on February 15, 2022 by Peter Wood
The video is a more popular method to show personality online. And YouTube is the most prevalent video-sharing platform around the world. According to the latest data from Global Web Index, 93% of Millennials and more than 70% of Baby Boomers visited YouTube in 2016. There is no doubt that YouTube is attractive to any age. If you want to show your character on YouTube, you should create a profile picture. Therefore, this article will guide to making and changing YouTube profile pictures.


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Part 1. How to Make YouTube Profile Picture
Way 1. Make YouTube profile picture on Windows
There are many professional photo makers on Windows. And I will take Photoshop as an example to introduce how to make a YouTube profile picture. You can choose other photo makers to make YouTube Profile pictures as well. And the process is similar.
Step 1. Open Photoshop on Windows and create a profile picture by clicking File and then New….
Step 2. In the setting window, make sure that the Width and the Height of the new picture are both 800 Pixels. And set the Background Content.
Step 3. Click the Ok button after setting it to continue.
Step 4. Select the Gradient tool on the left toolbox. The setting menu of Gradient will show below the top menu. Set the colors in Color Picker. There are some pre-selections. You can also set your preference here. Then select the Radial Gradient Mode.
Step 5. After setting, click the layer center and drag to the edge. Then you get the background for creating a YouTube profile picture.

How to add text in YouTube profile picture
Step 1. Select the Text tool on the left toolbox and customize the text settings. We usually use Boldface in profile pictures. You can download other art fonts and let Photoshop detect these fonts. You can type any text in a creative YouTube profile picture. I will type in the first character of my first name F. Then select the characters and change their size until satisfactory.
Step 2. Select the text layer in the Layer window and right-click it. Select Blending Options.
Step 3. Check the Shadow option and customize the settings: set the value of Distances to 0; Spread to 44%; Size to 33; and Opacity to 100%. And you can choose other options as you like. Then click on OK to confirm the settings to make a YouTube profile image.
Step 4. And you can also set the Opacity, Hue, and Saturation to make the characters highlighted.
Step 5. Right-click the text layer and select Convert to Smart Object. So you can use some filter effects on the text. For example, the filter of Lens Flare could make the text fantastic.
Step 6. Finally, click on File and Save to save your made YouTube profile picture as PNG.

Way 2. Create YouTube profile picture on Mac
Mac users have a pre-install photo editor, so they do not need to install third-party tools. I will introduce making a YouTube profile picture with Preview on a Mac computer. Just check the details to create YouTube Profile pictures on Mac below.
Step 1. Open Safari or other browsers on Mac computer and search background pictures in Google search engine.
Step 2. Download a background you like among the searching results to your Mac computer.
Step 3. Launch Preview and open the picture you download.
Step 4. You have to resize the background picture to 800 pixels * 800pixels. You can resize the image by Adjust Size option on the Tools menu or crop the image by Select tool on the toolbar.
Step 5. Then click on Text Tool to add some text to the picture to create a YouTube profile picture. Select the character and customize the color and font with Color Picker and Font settings on the top.
Step 6. Adjust hue and saturation until you get the result you need. Then click Save As to save the picture as a PNG file.

Way 3. Produce YouTube profile picture online
If you want to make a profile picture for your YouTube channel without installing third-party photo editors, some professional photo tools online can meet your demands. If you enter profile picture maker, you will get hundreds of websites. I will use Profile Picture Maker as an example to show you how to make a customized profile picture for YouTube.
Step 1. Type profilepicturemaker.com in your browser and click Enter.
Step 2. This profile image-maker can offer hundreds of photo frames. Once you click on the Photo Frame button on the top, the photo frame page will open. You browser one by one or search for a theme.
Step 3. If you do not like any frame on the website, select No Frame to continue.
Step 4. You can upload your photo from your computer in the background on the editing page. It also can add filters to your photos Sharpen, Blur, and Sketch Effect. You can explore these functions to make a profile picture.
Step 5. Once you get the perfect YouTube profile picture, click on the Download Profile Picture button on the bottom right corner. Then Profile Picture Maker will ask you where you want to use the image. Select YouTube and save it on your computer as a PNG file with the right dimension.

As you can see, making a YouTube profile picture is not a difficult task, no matter your computer runs Windows or Mac. You can utilize Photoshop to create a customized profile picture for your YouTube channel on Windows, or use Preview to make a simple YouTube picture. Of course, the online profile maker is another good choice.
Part 2. How to Change YouTube Profile Picture
Recently, Google released the virtual reality version of YouTube. So users could post 360-degree videos on YouTube now. Therefore, I will introduce how to change the YouTube profile picture in the following.
Way 1. Change YouTube profile picture within YouTube App
YouTube is not only a video-sharing site but also a social network. So it provides many options to users to customize, including changing profile pictures. When it comes to how-to, you can follow the steps below. If you have a YouTube app on your smartphone, you can change your YouTube profile picture within the app.
Step 1. Open YouTube app on your smartphone. YouTube is supporting iOS and Android now.
Step 2. Navigate to the Account menu shaped like a person on the top of the screen.
Step 3. Then you can find out your account. If your account has not been there, you can log in first. Once click the current profile picture to change, you can go to the setting page.
Step 4. Click on the Settings option that looks like a gear.
Step 5. Tap on the profile picture covered by a camera icon on the top. Then the pop-up box will ask you the source of the new profile picture.
Step 6. Wait for a few seconds. And you will find out your YouTube profile picture updated.

Way 2. Update YouTube profile picture on mobile browser
If you do not have the YouTube app, you can also update your YouTube profile picture by any browser on your mobile device. I will use Safari and iPad as examples here.
Step 1. Launch Safari and access youtube.com. The home page is similar to the interface of the YouTube App.
Step 2. Sign in to your Google account and select My Channel on the left side. If you cannot find it, click on the options button in the upper left corner of the page.
Step 3. Click on Sign in on the top right corner and log in to your account.
Step 4. Locate your current YouTube profile picture and click it to open the editing page. If the mobile version does not allow you to set a profile picture, select Desktop in the options menu on the top right corner to turn to the standard YouTube interface.
Step 5. You can touch the profile picture on the editing page. Then the edit icon that looks like a pen will show up.
Step 6. Click on the edit icon and select Edit. Your Camera Roll will show up.
Step 7. You can select a photo to change your YouTube profile picture.

Way 3. Refresh YouTube profile picture on PC
Many YouTube users prefer to access the platform on their computers for the larger screen and higher speed. So we can also change YouTube profile pictures on our computers.
Step 1. Open your browser on your computer and visit the YouTube website.
Step 2. Log in to your account and locate to Guide icon with three horizontal lines on the top right corner.
Step 3. Click on My Channel to open the setting window of the selected channel.
Step 4. You can discover that current YouTube profile image covered by an icon of a camera.
Step 5. Hover on and click the icon of the camera, then you can upload the new profile picture from your computer or Google cloud services. You can also set YouTube profile pictures with your computer’s built-in Web Camera.
Step 6. After a few seconds, you will discover your YouTube profile picture refreshed when you access your YouTube channel.

Way 4. Vary YouTube profile picture by Gmail
When you log in to YouTube, you will discover that Google will ask you to sign in to a Google account. Users could use one Google account to log in to all Google services, including Gmail, Google Drive, YouTube, and Google+. Once you update YouTube profile pictures on one service, the other will change together. So you can refresh the profile picture of Gmail to change the YouTube profile picture.
Step 1. Visit the website of Gmail and log in to your account.
Step 2. Click on the settings menu that looks like a gear on the upper right corner of the screen.
Step 3. Select Settings in the drop-down menu and locate to My picture.
Step 4. Click on Change Picture to activate the upload box.
Step 5. Tap on Choose File to upload a new profile image from your computer.
Step 6. Crop the image and click on Apply Changes to confirm the settings and vary the profile picture.
Step 7. The profile image of this account will be varied, including the linked YouTube channel.

As you can see, you can change YouTube profile pictures within App, with a mobile browser, or on computers. You can reset the profile image of other Google services; then YouTube will update together. Google lets users visit all its services with one account. That is convenience. But it also means that any changes within one service will affect others. So when you decide to change your YouTube profile image, you have to understand that you are changing the other service settings.