As admin, enable "Mobile services": Plugins ► Web Services ► Mobile Create a Token in the mobile app service for one user: Click on Site administration ► Plugins ► Web services ► Manage tokens Upload an image to be used as your new profile image via curl (replace the filedata and token) curl -i -F filedata=@/Users/juanleyvadelgado/Documents/jleyva.jpeg "http://localhost/m/stable_master/webservice/upload.php?token=ffbe3a3002f235bf9d01fd9369e10b66&filearea=draft" The itemid returned by the previous function will be the draftitemid for the next request: Next, you can do a CURL REST call simulating a WS client with the user to replace your image You need to replace the wstoken, draftitemid (itemid of the previous request) and the URL of your moodle instance curl 'http://localhost/m/stable_master/webservice/rest/server.php?moodlewsrestformat=json' --data 'draftitemid=458584267&wsfunction=core_user_update_picture&wstoken=ffbe3a3002f235bf9d01fd9369e10b66' | python -m "json.tool" Log out from Moodle, log in again and check that your see your now profile image Now, delete the image: curl 'http://localhost/m/stable_master/webservice/rest/server.php?moodlewsrestformat=json' --data 'draftitemid=0&delete=1&wsfunction=core_user_update_picture&wstoken=ffbe3a3002f235bf9d01fd9369e10b66' | python -m "json.tool" Log out and log in again to check that you see the Moodle default image You can optionally check that the WS don't work if you are trying to edit a mnet user, or a user using an authentication method that does not allow profile editing. There is also a global setting for disabling user profile images, you can enable that to check that the WS fails