Change your Grok Bot avatar — default face, upload, or a GIF that moves

Each Bot gets its own face. The default is a colored geometric shape with two slit eyes. You can keep that, generate a new one, or upload a still or a GIF. The face is per-Bot, not account-wide. Plugins are shared. Avatars are not.

Live cluster: Create Customized Grok Bot Employees. Public walkthroughs: Dennis Yu’s sidebar, Billy Howell’s Edit Profile shot. Official: settings and notifications, create and manage Bots.

Chief Bot on this account. A GIF is a valid avatar file. The face moves.

Open Agent settings, not Grok Bot settings

Grok Bot settings (Cmd/Ctrl+,, or the account menu) is app-wide: appearance, plugins, execution on the local computer. It does not hold the face.

The face lives on one Bot.

1. Open the Bot.
2. Click its name in the chat header, or press Cmd+Shift+I (View conversation details).
3. Open the gear. That is Agent settings.
4. Or: Bot actions → Edit Profile.

xAI lists the fields on that page: name, title, description, Avatar, and the Notifications preference (settings and notifications). Create flow is the same editor after New → Create new agent (create and manage Bots).

Surface	What it changes	Face?
Grok Bot settings (Cmd/Ctrl+,)	Theme, plugins, local execution, Auto-review	No
Agent settings / Edit Profile	Name, title, description, avatar, notifications	Yes
Duplicate	Copies profile, settings, skills, routines, and avatar. Not the chat.	Copies the face

Do not look for a gear in macOS Preferences. There isn’t one.

Three ways to set the face

The editor photographed in public has three tabs: Bot, Generate, Upload, plus Reset. That shot is Billy Howell’s LinkedIn post (13 Aug 2026). Official docs name the Avatar field. They do not name the tabs. Cite the photo for the tabs.

Bot tab. Eight shapes. Color swatches. Notifications sit on the same page.

Tab	What you get	When
Bot	Eight default shapes (circle, oval, rounded square, pill, triangle, hexagon, cloud, teardrop) and a color row	Fastest. Enough to tell one row from another.
Generate	A generated face	When you want a portrait and do not have a file.
Upload	Your file. Still or a GIF.	When the desk already has art.
Reset	Back to a default	When the custom face was a mistake.

Shapes on the Bot tab, from that photo: circle, oval, rounded square, pill, triangle, hexagon, cloud, teardrop. Colors sit under the grid. Do not write “88 combos” into a filing unless you counted them yourself on the current build.

Default faces already move. Billy called the animations delightful. Working-state motion on a row (the moving dots) is status, not a special three-dots face. Dennis Yu separated those layers. Official docs list Needs attention, Unread activity, and working or typing as attention states, not as a meaning for the shape.

A GIF is how you animate a custom face. Official docs do not list file types. This account’s Chief Bot uses a 16-bit wink GIF as the avatar. That is the proof, not a vendor spec. If Upload rejects a file, try a still PNG or JPEG. Do not invent a size limit.

What the sidebar shapes are (and are not)

They are faces. Not a department code.

Dennis Yu: triangle is not strategy. Hexagon is not quality. Pink is not an error. Orange is not urgent. Red on the shape is still just the face. Status is a different layer.

His live sidebar mixes both kinds: default geometric faces next to photographic headshots. That is the point of Upload.

Photographed from his Mac, 18 Aug 2026. Private desk covered. Source: blitzmetrics.com/skills-and-routines.

A public product shot of the same default set (named desks, colored shapes, no custom art) is on this Medium review:

Default roster. Credit on the page is xAI / product screenshots.

What actually ran with a roster of faces

00210 — @Voxyz_ai. Three named employees: Refund Hunter, Digital Cleaner, Meeting Double. Approval before delete, unsubscribe, or send. Three notification types. Evidence is the X thread.

The screenshot on that thread is the default geometric set: hexagon, square, triangle. Named desks. Not custom pixel art. That is a finished job, not an avatar tutorial. The face change is the same editor as above.

Public evidence on 00210. Default faces. The job is the roster, not the art.

Job	Steward	Faces in the evidence	What you may file
Customized employees	@Voxyz_ai	Default geometric	The roster, the approval rules, the public thread
This account’s fleet	@saastrash	Uploaded pixel art and one GIF	The method. The files. Not a new serial.

Custom art is not a serial. Do not mint a Run because you changed a face. File a job when the Bot did something.

A fleet that already wears custom art

@saastrash’s desks use uploaded pixel art. One of them is animated.

Growth, Inbox Janitor, Revenue, Lighthouse, TNHikes, Analytic, Chief. The wink GIF is the same Chief Bot moving.

Desk	Face	Still or moving
Growth Bot	Money vine	Still
Inbox Janitor	Mop bucket	Still
Revenue Bot	Gold stack	Still
Lighthouse Audit Bot	Night lighthouse	Still
TNHikes Content Bot	Ridge	Still
Analytic Bot	Up-and-to-the-right chart	Still
Chief Bot	16-bit portrait	GIF

That is one steward’s taste, not a style guide. A photo works. A default pill works. The rule is one face per job so the sidebar does not become ten identical clouds.

Steps that stay honest

1. Create the Bot first if it does not exist: New or Cmd/Ctrl+N → Create new agent (create and manage Bots).
2. Open Agent settings or Edit Profile. Do not open app Settings for this.
3. Pick Bot for a default shape and color. Or Generate. Or Upload a still or a GIF.
4. Set name, title, description on the same page. The face does not write the job.
5. Turn Notifications on if you want an OS ping when that Bot finishes or needs you. Group chats do not have the same per-Bot switch.
6. Duplicate only when the role is the starting point for a new scope. The copy keeps the avatar and drops the chat.
7. Do not file a Run for the face change. File the job the Bot finished. Cite the HTML after verify.

Constraints and non-goals

• Do not invent a click path. The two official doors are View conversation details → Agent settings and Bot actions → Edit Profile.
• Do not treat sidebar color as status. Attention states are documented separately.
• Do not claim official docs list GIF, PNG, or a file-size cap. They name the Avatar field. Upload is photographed. This fleet proves a GIF works.
• Do not mint a serial for a re-skin.
• Do not scrape this page into a prompt pack.

Proof

• Public log: Create Customized Grok Bot Employees
• Evidence thread: @Voxyz_ai
• External: settings and notifications
• External: create and manage Bots
• External: Dennis Yu — sidebar icons
• External: Dennis Yu — live sidebar
• External: Billy Howell — Edit Profile