Uploaded May 2017 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago

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Learn how to set an account image in XFCE if there are several users using the system.

In the previous video I showed how to set an account image in the XFCE desktop.
youtu.be/m3kWAj3-IgQ

I had only one user when I created that video and I didn't realize that those settings didn't work for several-users systmes with encrypted home directories.

For MULTI-USERS systems with encrypted homes, the settings are little different.
To change the user icons in lightDM login manager, do the following:

# Install accountsservice
sudo apt install accountsservice

# create a file /var/lib/AccountsService/users/username for every user. For example, I have two users alu, vbox
sudo nano /var/lib/AccountsService/users/alu

# paste the following
[User]
Icon=/var/lib/AccountsService/icons/alu

# do the same for vbox.
sudo nano /var/lib/AccountsService/users/vbox

# paste
[User]
Icon=/var/lib/AccountsService/icons/vbox

# resize the user images to 96x96 px in GIMP similarly to how I resized an image to 200 px in the video (200px will be too large and won't scale in this case.).

# copy the user images to /var/lib/AccountsService/icons/ and rename them to username without .png
sudo cp alu.png /var/lib/AccountsService/icons/alu
sudo cp vbox.png /var/lib/AccountsService/icons/vbox

Log out, log in and everything should work.

It's a pity I didn't know it before I made the previos video.

Please, let me know if something still doesn't work.

More XFCE tips: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLSmXPSsgkZLt4F4tFSreGqtoFSMUpGo2Q

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