Facebook API - How do I get a Facebook user's profile image through the Facebook API (without requiring the user to "Allow" the application)

Question

Simply fetch the data through this URL:

http://graph.facebook.com/userid_here/picture

Replace userid_here with id of the user you want to get the photo of. You can also use HTTPS as well.

You can use the PHP's file_get_contents function to read that URL and process the retrieved data.

Resource:

http://developers.facebook.com/docs/api

Note: In php.ini, you need to make sure that the OpenSSL extension is enabled to use thefile_get_contents function of PHP to read that URL.

To show:

50x50 pixels

<img src="//graph.facebook.com/{{fid}}/picture">

200 pixels width

<img src="//graph.facebook.com/{{fid}}/picture?type=large">

To save (using PHP)

NOTE: Don't use this. See @Foreever's comment below.

$img = file_get_contents('https://graph.facebook.com/'.$fid.'/picture?type=large');
$file = dirname(__file__).'/avatar/'.$fid.'.jpg';
file_put_contents($file, $img);

Where $fid is your user id on Facebook.

NOTE: In case of images marked as "18+" you will need a valid access_token from a 18+ user:

<img src="//graph.facebook.com/{{fid}}/picture?access_token={{access_token}}">

UPDATE 2015:

Graph API v2.0 can't be queried using usernames, you should use userId always.

UPDATE:

Starting end August 2012, the API has been updated to allow you to retrieve user's profile pictures in varying sizes. Add the optional width and height fields as URL parameters:

https://graph.facebook.com/USER_ID/picture?width=WIDTH&height=HEIGHT

where WIDTH and HEIGHT are your requested dimension values.

This will return a profile picture with a minimum size of WIDTH x HEIGHT while trying to preserve the aspect ratio. For example,

https://graph.facebook.com/redbull/picture?width=140&height=110

returns

    {
      "data": {
        "url": "https://fbcdn-profile-a.akamaihd.net/hprofile-ak-ash4/c0.19.180.142/s148x148/2624_134501175351_4831452_a.jpg",
        "width": 148,
        "height": 117,
        "is_silhouette": false
      }
   }

END UPDATE

To get a user's profile picture, call

https://graph.facebook.com/USER_ID/picture

where USER_ID can be the user id number or the user name.

To get a user profile picture of a specific size, call

https://graph.facebook.com/USER_ID/picture?type=SIZE

where SIZE should be replaced with one of the words

square
small
normal
large

depending on the size you want.

This call will return a URL to a single image with its size based on your chosen type parameter.

For example:

https://graph.facebook.com/USER_ID/picture?type=small

returns a URL to a small version of the image.

The API only specifies the maximum size for profile images, not the actual size.

Square:

maximum width and height of 50 pixels.

Small

maximum width of 50 pixels and a maximum height of 150 pixels.

Normal

maximum width of 100 pixels and a maximum height of 300 pixels.

Large

maximum width of 200 pixels and a maximum height of 600 pixels.

If you call the default USER_ID/picture you get the square type.

CLARIFICATION

If you call (as per above example)

https://graph.facebook.com/redbull/picture?width=140&height=110

it will return a JSON response if you're using one of the Facebook SDKs request methods. Otherwise it will return the image itself. To always retrieve the JSON, add:

&redirect=false

like so:

https://graph.facebook.com/redbull/picture?width=140&height=110&redirect=false

To get the image URL, NOT binary content:

$url = "http://graph.facebook.com/$fbId/picture?type=$size";

$headers = get_headers($url, 1);

if( isset($headers['Location']) )
    echo $headers['Location']; // string
else
    echo "ERROR";

You must use your FACEBOOK ID, NOT USERNAME. You can get your facebook id there:

http://findmyfbid.com/

Simple one-line code to save FULL size profile image on your server.

<?php

copy("https://graph.facebook.com/FACEBOOKID/picture?width=9999&height=9999", "picture.jpg");

?>

This will only work if openssl is enabled in php.ini.