Skip to content

Add option to disable Gravatar via environment variable (Privacy improvement) #5470

New issue

Have a question about this project? Sign up for a free GitHub account to open an issue and contact its maintainers and the community.

Sign up for GitHub

By clicking “Sign up for GitHub”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy statement. We’ll occasionally send you account related emails.

Already on GitHub? Sign in to your account

Open
rezzorix wants to merge 2 commits into
base: develop
Choose a base branch
from
Open

Add option to disable Gravatar via environment variable (Privacy improvement) #5470

Show file tree
Hide file tree
Changes from all commits
Commits
Show all changes
2 commits
Select commit Hold shift + click to select a range
03848f5
Add option to disable Gravatar via environment variable
rezzorix Apr 9, 2026
88dd26a
Add FAQ entry for disabling Gravatar
rezzorix May 15, 2026
File filter

Filter by extension

Filter by extension
Conversations
Failed to load comments.
Loading
Jump to
Jump to file
Failed to load files.
Loading
Diff view
Diff view
32 changes: 26 additions & 6 deletions backend/internal/user.js
View file
Open in desktop
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -8,11 +8,20 @@ import userPermissionModel from "../models/user_permission.js";
import internalAuditLog from "./audit-log.js";
import internalToken from "./token.js";

const disableGravatar = String(process.env.DISABLE_GRAVATAR).toLowerCase() === "true";

function getAvatar(email) {
if (disableGravatar) {
return "";
}
return gravatar.url(email, { default: "mm" });
}

const omissions = () => {
return ["is_deleted", "permissions.id", "permissions.user_id", "permissions.created_on", "permissions.modified_on"];
};

const DEFAULT_AVATAR = gravatar.url("admin@example.com", { default: "mm" });
const DEFAULT_AVATAR = disableGravatar ? "" : gravatar.url("admin@example.com", { default: "mm" });

const internalUser = {
/**
Expand All @@ -35,7 +44,7 @@ const internalUser = {
}

await access.can("users:create", data);
data.avatar = gravatar.url(data.email, { default: "mm" });
data.avatar = getAvatar(data.email);

let user = await userModel.query().insertAndFetch(data).then(utils.omitRow(omissions()));
if (auth) {
Expand Down Expand Up @@ -118,7 +127,7 @@ const internalUser = {
);
}

data.avatar = gravatar.url(data.email || user.email, { default: "mm" });
data.avatar = getAvatar(data.email || user.email);
return userModel.query().patchAndFetchById(user.id, data).then(utils.omitRow(omissions()));
})
.then(() => {
Expand Down Expand Up @@ -179,10 +188,12 @@ const internalUser = {
return _.omit(row, thisData.omit);
}

if (row.avatar === "") {
if (disableGravatar) {
row.avatar = "";
} else if (row.avatar === "") {
row.avatar = DEFAULT_AVATAR;
}

return row;
});
},
Expand Down Expand Up @@ -318,7 +329,16 @@ const internalUser = {
}

const res = await query;
return utils.omitRows(omissions())(res);
const rows = utils.omitRows(omissions())(res);

return rows.map((row) => {
if (disableGravatar) {
row.avatar = "";
} else if (row.avatar === "") {
row.avatar = DEFAULT_AVATAR;
}
return row;
});
},

/**
Expand Down
8 changes: 8 additions & 0 deletions docs/src/faq/index.md
View file
Open in desktop
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -30,3 +30,11 @@ as this is the standardized header meant for this kind of information. However h
is not allowed in the [internet standard](https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc7230#section-3.2.2) and almost all apps
do not support multiple values in the `Authorization` header. Hence one of the two logins will be broken. This can
only be fixed by either removing one of the logins or by changing the app to use other non-standard headers for authorization.

## How do I disable Gravatar for privacy?

Gravatar can be disabled by setting the `DISABLE_GRAVATAR` environment variable to `true`.

```yaml
environment:
DISABLE_GRAVATAR: 'true'