How can I change a users profile picture in OS X using AppleScript

Question

I have written an AppleScript to grab a users Facebook profile picture (using Curl) store it on their machine and set it as their User Picture in OS X. This picture: enter image description here

I am having trouble setting the picture, I've tried

tell application "System Events"
    set the picture path of current user to alias downloadedpath
end tell

But am having no luck! I am defining the path using colons, an example value of downloadedpath would be "Macintosh HD:Users:jacoblukewood:Desktop:profile.jpg"

How would I use this, I plan to use this on 10.8 and 10.9.

Are you getting any errors? Is it failing silently? What actually happens when you run it. — Darrick Herwehe, Nov 05 '13 at 14:57
this seems to fail silently on mavricks and i get missing value when trying to retrieve the current picture path — mcgrailm, Nov 05 '13 at 17:53
I can't reproduce the error on 10.8. It may be a bug in Mavericks. I would file a bug report. — Darrick Herwehe, Nov 05 '13 at 19:01
There is no error produced. I just tried on a friends machine with ML and on running getpupicture path it showed the path I set but did not change the actual picture. — Jacob Wood, Nov 06 '13 at 00:49
supposedly under mavericks you can setup your facebook in internet accounts prefs and link the profile pic but i haven't been able to get it working yet — mcgrailm, Nov 07 '13 at 15:31
Any chance your script is open source? Wouldn't mind having a peek! — Paulo, May 09 '14 at 06:58

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Apr 21 '15 at 04:41

0

My guess is because you are using Old:Mac:Format for your path, instead of the industry standard path/to/foo (POSIX). Is there any particular reason that you are using Ye Olde Mac Format?

answered Apr 21 '15 at 04:41

XQLRSZ

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From memory (this was 1.5 years or so ago) the POSTIX format was not working in AppleScript and you had to use the Silly:Old:Format. – Jacob Wood Apr 21 '15 at 09:30
I saw the date before I posted, but I still thought POSIX was the standard. I think POSIX was used by the OS. – XQLRSZ Apr 21 '15 at 13:21

How can I change a users profile picture in OS X using AppleScript

1 Answers1