Question

Simply: how do I get the user’s account image?

I’m using Cocoa on Mac.

Answer 1

The Address Book method doesn’t work if the user deletes the vcard.

I use the CBIdentity method that never breaks, as Dave says:

+ (NSImage *)userImage
{
    CBIdentity *identity = [CBIdentity identityWithName:NSUserName() authority:[CBIdentityAuthority defaultIdentityAuthority]];
    return [identity image];
}

In order to use CBIdentity you need to add the Collaboration Framework to your targets and use the following include directive

#import <Collaboration/Collaboration.h>