X-Face

Revision as of 21:10, 25 September 2025

X-Face is a compressed image format that can be placed in an email or Usenet newsgroup message header. It is expected to contain the sender's picture or avatar. It is a 48×48 bi-level image. The format appears to be fairly complex, and probably uses arithmetic coding.

Discussion

Although X-Face data is often expected to be stored in a file, there isn't really a standard X-Face file format. The main thing to be aware of is that sometimes the "X-Face:" header name is stored in the file, and sometimes it is not. Different software has different requirements.

File extensions .face and .xface have both been suggested. Sometimes, X-Face data will be in a file named ".face" in the user's home directory.

Most or all X-Face code is based on James Ashton's Compface software, and Compface's code is fairly opaque. A specification has been written by reverse-engineering Compface.

Compface intermediate format

The Compface software by default converts X-Face to and from the Ikon format. It only supports 48×48 images with a bit depth of 1. Most implementations use 16-bit words but one implementation[1] uses 8-bit words.

Software

• Compface
  • compface-1.4.tar.gz (uncompface -X to convert to XBM format)
  • compface-1.5.2.tar.gz
  • compface-25Jan90.tar.gz
  • X-Faces for Windows 95/NT
• FFmpeg
• Deark
• Online X-Face Converter
• x-face-el — extends the format, in a manner unsupported by other software, adding colour/greyscale pixels, animation, and larger image sizes
  • [2] - Additional Emacs Lisp scripts that handle X-Face, plus examples of extended X-Face.

• Datula - A Japanese e-mail client which supported plugins in versions such as 1.52.01.01, two of which involved extended X-Face.
  • Datula DFaceEX X-Face Plugin - An X-Face viewer plugin for Datula capable of viewing extended X-Faces.
  • XFacePlugin with FaceMake - Another viewer plugin by the same author (saku) which includes a program called FaceMake which combines the X-Face-el extensions into a unified format of 24-bit RGB with animation (needs to be done frame-by-frame, but the decoder will happily decode it) and beyond-48x48px.

Samples

• https://dev.mutt.org/trac/wiki/MuttGuide/XFace - Search for "compface tao.xbm".
• WinFace1_3-src.zip → WinFace/default_face.txt
• faces man page, "XFACE SUPPORT" section, has an example.

• https://stgiga.github.io/X-FacePlusFaceAll48pxHeaders.txt - Sample of regular X-Face, Face (Base64+PNG), & the 48x48 x-face-el extended X-Face types (8-bit grayscale & animated 3bpp RGB).
  • https://stgiga.github.io/X-FacePlusFaceAll48pxHeadersFix.txt - Sample of regular X-Face, Face (Base64+PNG), & the 48x48 x-face-el extended X-Face types (8-bit grayscale & animated 3bpp RGB, in a way that works on Datula).
• https://stgiga.github.io/QuadFace.gif - A GIFski GIF rendering of the above, assembled into a 96x96 square cell (useful if everything is 48x48) that modern UIs would prefer.

• https://stgiga.github.io/X-FacePlusFaceAllHeaders.txt - Sample of regular X-Face, Face (Base64+PNG), & the x-face-el extended X-Face types (8-bit grayscale & animated 3bpp RGB, including going beyond 48x48px).
  • https://stgiga.github.io/X-FacePlusFaceAllHeadersFix.txt - Sample of regular X-Face, Face (Base64+PNG), & the x-face-el extended X-Face types (8-bit grayscale & animated 3bpp RGB, including going beyond 48x48px, and in the way that works on Datula).
• https://stgiga.github.io/TallFace.gif - A GIFski GIF rendering of the above, assembled into a 96x144 cell that modern UIs would prefer over stringing them side-by-side like x-face-el does, or in a tiny gallery like Datula does.

• https://stgiga.github.io/X-FacePlusFaceAllHeadersPlus24bitFixOG.txt - Sample of regular X-Face, Face (Base64+PNG), & the x-face-el and Datula extended X-Face types (Datula's animated 24-bit RGB, plus x-face-el's 8-bit grayscale & animated 3bpp RGB, including going beyond 48x48px.)
• https://stgiga.github.io/LushFace.gif - A GIFski GIF rendering of the above, assembled into a 96x144 cell that modern UIs would prefer over stringing them side-by-side like x-face-el does, or in a tiny gallery like Datula does.

• https://web.archive.org/web/20051029080349/http://www.jpl.org/elips/image/x-faces.gif - Many samples of X-Face and X-Face-el (extended mode is known as X-Face-Xmas internally) from long ago.
  • https://web.archive.org/web/19980630075245/http://www.jpl.org/elips/image/x-faces.gif - Oldest (1998) archived version of the collage, featuring beyond-48x48px X-Face-el/X-Face-Xmas X-Faces from long ago in addition to the RGB ones, even mixing the two modes.

• dexvert samples — image/xface

Links

• Faces Archive - Lists some X-Face resources
  • [3] - Archived page
• faces man page
• Wikipedia: X-Face