How to remove the picture next to my name in gmail

Question

here is my problem. I recently bought an samsung s4 Active. When I started using it I noticed that there was a random picture next to my name on all my outgoing emails from my phone. The picture is a random screen shot from a youtube video I uploaded years ago. I come to find out that google has taken it upon themselves to somehow link all my stuff together and now assign this picture as my "profile picture"

After some internet searching i find that I need to delete the album inside of Picasa that is labled "profile pictures" that i never created. That didnt work.

Now im told to create a google+ account and then turn around and delete it to remove this picure association. That didnt work either.

So my question is: If I dont have a google+ account, have deleted any folder that is called "profile picture", and gone into my gmail settings to select "no picture"...what else do I need to do to remove this random picture that appears next to my name on all my outgoing emails from my phone???

Answer 1

The picture is linked to the google+ profile. When YouTube switched to g+ for comments, existing YouTube accounts were basically converted to a limited g+ profile. So, you may actually have more than one g+ profile.

Go to Google+ on the computer. Trust me it will be easier than the mobile site or the app. In the upper right corner, click on the picture or icon that is there. You should see the g+ profile you created and below it your YouTube profile.

If you are already on the profile with the picture, click on the "change photo" banner that appears over the profile photo.

If you aren't on the profile with the picture, click it to switch to that profile. Then click the picture in the upper right again and click the "change photo" ribbon over the picture.

Now you can change the photo to whatever you want or just upload a generic or even solid color picture. I don't know of a way to completely delete it, so maybe just upload an all white box instead.

Answer 2

Google has linked YouTube to Google+, so now, if you have a YouTube channel, you have a Google+ profile.

To delete the profile picture:

1.) Go to your Google+ profile. press the picture that you have as your profile picture, and then press on the blue button that says "View Profile."

2.) Once you are there, you will see a profile picture and a cover photo. Press on the profile picture. When you hover over the picture, you will see a camera inside a circle. Don't click on the camera, just click anywhere on the profile picture other than the camera.

3.) You should see your profile picture. On top of the profile picture, there is a row of things that you can do. At the very right of that row, there is a picture of a trash can. When you hover over it, it should say, "Delete photo." Click on the trash can, and your profile picture is gone. The photo should switch back to the default profile picture, and voila!

I'm not very sure if this will delete the screenshot that you took, but it will delete the profile picture.