The short answer: you cannot change the picture inside the YouTube Music app itself, because YouTube Music pulls it straight from your Google Account. To swap it, go to myaccount.google.com, open Personal info, tap Profile picture, upload a new photo, and save. Within a few minutes to a few days the new avatar shows up in YouTube Music, and everywhere else you use that Google Account.

That is the whole trick, and it explains almost every headache people run into. The photo you see in the top corner of YouTube Music is not a YouTube Music setting at all. It is your Google identity. Below is exactly how to change it on any device, what to do when it stubbornly refuses to update, and the one situation where a YouTube channel picture can differ from your Google photo.

Where your YouTube Music profile picture actually comes from

Open YouTube Music, look at the round photo in the top right, and tap it. You will notice there is no "change photo" button anywhere in that menu. That is by design. YouTube Music, regular YouTube, Gmail, Google Photos, and the rest of Google all share one profile picture tied to your Google Account. Change it in one place and it changes across all of them.

This is different from Spotify, where the profile picture is its own separate setting you edit inside the app or on the web player. If you came here expecting a similar in-app option, that is why you could not find one. (If you also use Spotify and want that specific walkthrough, we cover it in how to change your Spotify profile picture.) On YouTube Music the picture lives at the account level, so you edit it through Google.

How to change it on your phone (Android and iPhone)

The steps are the same whether you are on Android or iOS, because you are editing your Google Account rather than the app.

  1. Open a browser and go to myaccount.google.com, or on Android open Settings and tap your Google account at the top.
  2. Tap Personal info.
  3. Under "Basic info," tap Profile picture. You may be asked to sign in again.
  4. Tap Change or Add profile picture, then choose Next.
  5. Pick a photo from your gallery or take a new one, then drag to center it in the square.
  6. Tap Save as profile picture.

Once it saves, reopen YouTube Music. If the old photo is still showing, that is normal for a little while, and the next section explains why.

A small bonus: if you ever want an old photo back, Google keeps your history. On the Profile picture screen, open the More menu and choose Past profile pictures.

How to change it on desktop

On a computer the flow is nearly identical:

  1. Go to myaccount.google.com and make sure you are signed in to the account you listen on.
  2. Click Personal info in the left menu.
  3. Under "Basic info," click Profile picture.
  4. Upload a photo from your computer or pick one from Google Photos.
  5. Rotate and crop it, click Next, then click Save as profile picture.

Refresh music.youtube.com and your new avatar should appear in the corner. Again, if it does not update right away, hold off on panicking. Google is slow to sync sometimes.

When it "won't change": caching and sync delays

This is the number one complaint, and it is almost never a real bug. Google itself says that after you change your name or profile picture, "it sometimes takes a few days to update across all Google products." So the picture is genuinely saved, it just has not propagated to YouTube Music yet. Your device is also showing you a cached copy of the old image.

A few things speed it up:

One more gotcha worth checking first: make sure you actually changed the photo on the right account. Plenty of people have two or three Google logins on the same phone, change the picture on their personal Gmail, then wonder why the account they listen on still looks the same. Tap your avatar in YouTube Music, confirm which email is active, and edit that specific account.

The brand account and channel picture wrinkle

Here is where it gets slightly more involved. For most people, YouTube Music simply mirrors the Google Account photo, and the steps above are all you need. But YouTube now lets a channel carry its own name and picture that are separate from your personal Google identity, and Brand Accounts have always worked that way.

If your YouTube channel has a custom picture set in YouTube Studio (under Customization, then Branding), that channel avatar can differ from your plain Google Account photo. In that case, changing your Google picture updates most Google surfaces, while the channel keeps its own branded image on YouTube. Which one YouTube Music displays depends on the account you are signed in as. If you switch profiles inside the app and see a different photo, you are looking at a different channel or Brand Account, each with its own picture.

The practical takeaway: if the Google Account method above changes your picture everywhere except one spot, you are probably dealing with a channel that has its own separate avatar. Update that one in YouTube Studio rather than in your Google Account.

Artists have a third, entirely separate photo. The image on an Official Artist Channel is managed through YouTube for Artists, not your personal account, so changing your Google picture will not touch it. If that is what you are trying to update, see how to claim your YouTube Music artist profile, which covers the artist side, and Google's own set your artist avatar help page.

A quick note on what YouTube Music shows other people

Worth being clear about this, since it comes up: YouTube Music has no public listener profiles and no "who viewed your profile" feature. Your picture appears to you inside the app, on your public channel page, and on anything you have made public like playlists you share. Nobody is browsing a directory of listener avatars, so you do not need to overthink privacy here beyond your normal channel visibility settings.

If your real goal was to see your own listening stats rather than tweak your avatar, our upcoming YouTube Music hub is being built for that. And if Spotify is part of your rotation, you can already check your Spotify listening any time with Music Profile Viewer on our homepage. That tool is Spotify only for now, so it will not read your YouTube Music account, but it is worth a look if you use both.

Came here to see your own stats, not just change your avatar? Music Profile Viewer shows your Spotify listening any time. Open the free Spotify profile viewer for your top artists and tracks across every time range.

It uses official read-only Spotify sign in and stores nothing. It is Spotify only for now, so it will not read your YouTube Music account.

The bottom line stays simple. The YouTube Music profile picture is your Google Account picture. Change it once at myaccount.google.com, give the sync a little patience, and it lands everywhere. The only exceptions are a channel or Brand Account with its own custom avatar, or an artist profile, both of which you edit in their own settings instead.

Sources and further reading