Twitter Avatar Image Sizes

When we relaunched our site, we put some extra work in our blog. One of the ideas we added was cribbed from the brilliant folks at Happy Cog... using twitter posts as article comments.

While working on our own implementation, we had to look into Twitter's avatars. After a user uploads an image, what are some of the image sizes the Twitter system produces? Naturally this would affect how our comments looked. Though I searched the Twitter API documentation, I couldn't find any details on the subject (though I admit maybe I just didn't see it).

After some digging and experimentation, I found the following four image avatar files available for most every Twitter profile...

  • There's the full-sized image, the one originally uploaded to Twitter. This can be almost any size and does not necessarily have to be square. All the avatars that twitter creates are based on this image, and those it creates will be square.
  • There is a big version curiously labelled "_reasonably_small" that is cropped to 128x128 pixels. This is the one used in top left of a Twitter profile, by the name, location, and brief bio. The catch is that this image size may not exist if the original image is smaller than 128 pixels... instead this image will return the next size down.
  • There is a medium sized version called "_bigger" that is used in the new twitter layout, specifically in the slide-out pane when you zoom into a conversation. It is 73x73 pixels square.
  • There is a normal sized version called "_normal" that is used as the main avatar in most every twitter list on the official site. It is 48x48 pixels square.
  • Finally, there is a "_mini" sized avatar that is 24x24 pixels square. It is used in the top-right of the new twitter layout, where users access a pulldown of settings and options.

Now, this may not be all of them. And in fact, these might have changed since I originally went poking around. Does anyone have any further information?

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