Is it possible to get a person public profile photo using email alone, just like on the old G+/Picasa API?

Question

Background

In the past, and in the near future, it's possible, given a person's email, to get the profile photo, as shown here:

Retrieving a user's public google/gmail picture

It is even possible without any login to the network of G+, as shown here .

The problem

As the docs say ( here ), this API will soon be deprecated and so it won't be possible to use it anymore:

The Picasa Web Albums Data API will be turned off and all associated OAuth scopes will be disabled. Read the deprecation notice.

Key dates:

• January 2019 Unless you have requested an extension, all calls to the Picasa Web Albums Data API will begin to fail from this date onwards.
• March 2019 The Picasa Web Albums API will be turned off. All calls to this API will fail from this date onwards and you cannot request any further extensions.

What I've found

Looking at the new API ( migration guide and normal docs ), I don't see any similar approach to just reach a website URL and get the image of the profile. All they talk about is the photos API of Google Photos app.

What I do know is that there is the "People" API for a similar thing, but as I remember it requires a login first.

The question

Is there an alternative API to what is currently available?

Is there a way using one of Google's APIs to get the public profile photo of a person's email address, even without login? Or maybe login is now required no matter what?

Answer 1

A possible solution I found so far is about using people API with your own key, But you still need to get the account id for the particular email address