# SSO & external avatars

**URL:** <https://meta.discourse.org/t/sso-external-avatars/192392>\
**Category:** Feature\
**Created:** [June 2, 2021, 11:44am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/sso-external-avatars/192392 "2021-06-02T11:44:45Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 9

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**Author:** ![Falco](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/falco/32/179432_2.png) [@Falco](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Falco)\
**Post date:** [February 19, 2024, 4:29pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/sso-external-avatars/192392/9 "2024-02-19T16:29:41Z")

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> [@mentalstring](#):
>
> So, if I understand correctly, currently Discourse is proxying avatars from the object storage to the client. However, this behavior seems specific to when using SSO external avatars since avatars here in meta are coming directly from the (CDN’ed) object storage. But when using SSO with external URLs, the avatar URLs are in the form

That’s not the case. By default, Discourse will proxy requests for avatars, as you see on your site.

However, last year, we introduced a setting that can be enabled via the ENV `DISCOURSE_REDIRECT_AVATAR_REQUESTS=1` to trigger the behavior you see here.

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_[View the full topic](https://meta.discourse.org/t/sso-external-avatars/192392)._