How does reverse image search work?

Upload an image or provide a URL, and our tool will help you search across multiple search engines. Each engine compares your picture with the images in its own index and shows the matches it finds. Most also show visually similar pictures.

What can I use reverse image search for?

Common uses include finding the original source of an image, identifying fake profiles, finding higher resolution versions, discovering similar products, verifying image authenticity, and finding usage rights information.

Is reverse image search free to use?

Yes! Our reverse image search tool is completely free to use. No registration or login required. You can search as many images as you want; each image can be up to 10 MB.

Is my data secure when using reverse image search?

Search engines can only search an image they can download, so an uploaded image is stored on our server at a temporary, unlisted link. Only the search engines you click receive that link, and the file is deleted automatically after about an hour. We don't use your images for anything else. If you paste an image URL instead, nothing is uploaded.

Free Reverse Image Search — Search the Web With a Photo

Q: What is reverse image search?

Reverse image search is a technique that allows you to search the internet using an image instead of text. It helps you find similar images, identify objects, find the original source, or discover where else an image appears online.

SaveDelete's free reverse image search lets you search using a picture instead of words. Upload an image, paste an image URL or snap a photo, and the tool instantly builds ready-to-go searches across Google Images, Google Lens, Bing Visual Search, Yandex and TinEye. There is nothing to install, no account to create and no limit on how many images you can look up, and it works on mobile as well as desktop.

How to Do a Reverse Image Search (3 Steps)

Add your image. Drag and drop a file, click to upload, paste an image URL, or use your camera. JPG, PNG, GIF and WebP are supported (up to 10 MB).
Click “Search Image.” The tool prepares a ready-made search link for each major engine using your image.
Open the engines. Click Google, Bing, Yandex or TinEye to open its search results: matching and similar photos, their sources and details. Try more than one — each engine finds different results.

Search Engines We Support

Google Images & Google Lens — for identifying objects, landmarks, plants, products and text inside a photo.
Bing Visual Search — strong for shopping, products and similar images.
Yandex — for finding the same picture in other sizes and the sites that use it.
TinEye — a search-by-image specialist, ideal for finding the exact original and tracking where an image has appeared over time.

What You Can Use It For

Common uses include finding the original source of a photo, spotting fake profiles and catfish on dating apps and social media, checking whether a photo is old or used out of context, finding a higher-resolution version of an image, identifying products, plants, animals and landmarks, discovering where your own photos appear online, and finding image usage rights before you reuse a picture.

Private and Free

The tool is 100% free with no sign-up, so you can look up as many pictures as you like. Search engines can only search an image they can download, so an uploaded image is kept on our server at a temporary, unlisted link. Only the engines you click receive that link, and the file is deleted automatically after about an hour. If you paste an image URL instead, nothing is uploaded.

How engines match a picture

When you search by image, the engine looks at what the picture shows. TinEye, for one, says it does not use file names or any metadata attached to your image.

Your file's name doesn't reach the engines anyway. An upload gets a random name on our server before any engine sees it.

An engine can only match pictures it has already crawled. Yandex says its results depend on whether images exist online and whether it has indexed them.

Google's search results, for example, can cover objects in the photo, similar photos, and websites with the same image or a close copy.

Which engine suits which job

The tool gives you one button per engine. Each has its own index, so pick by what you want to find.

Google Lens: for naming what is in a photo. Google says it can name a plant or dog breed, tell you about artwork and landmarks, and show where to buy a product.
Google Images: this button uses Google's older search-by-image address. Google forwards it to the same Lens results, so expect the same page as the Lens button.
Bing Visual Search: Microsoft says it can find similar images, products, pages that include the image, and even recipes.
Yandex Images: Yandex says it can find the same picture in other sizes and list the sites that use it. It can also find the full version when you only have part of an image.
TinEye: for copies of your exact image, including cropped, edited or resized ones. It says it doesn't usually return similar matches and can't recognise what an image shows.

If one engine finds nothing, open the next. Results vary from engine to engine.

Once you click a button, that engine's own privacy terms apply. TinEye says it never adds your image to its index. Microsoft says photos you give Bing may be used to improve its image processing.

Checking a photo or a profile before you trust it

A reverse image search is a quick way to catch an old photo shared as new. If copies were online before the event a caption describes, the photo can't show that event.

Search the photo on two or three engines.
On TinEye, sort the results by Oldest to see the earliest copies it has found.
Open those early pages and read what they say about where and when the photo was taken.
Weigh what you find alongside other checks, not on its own.

Treat dates with care. TinEye's dates show when its crawler found an image, not when the image first went online.

The oldest result isn't always the original, either. The first copy may never have been indexed.

Google also has an About this image view. It shows when Google may have first seen the image, or similar ones, and how other sites use it.

To check a video, take a screenshot of a clear frame and search that instead.

Spotting a fake profile

The US Federal Trade Commission suggests searching with a stranger's profile picture. If the photo appears under another name, or with details that don't match their story, treat it as a scam warning.

Paste at least 20 words of a profile bio or message into our plagiarism checker, and it searches the web for copied passages.

Finding the image source before you reuse a picture

Before you reuse a picture, find out who made it. Open the pages in your results and look for a photo credit, a caption or a licence note.

Google can show licence details for some images. It takes them from the sites hosting the images, so it advises checking the details with the licence provider and the host site.

Google also warns that images might be subject to copyright. To find the largest copy of a picture, sort TinEye's results by Biggest image.

Tips for better results

Crop to the subject. A cropped image leaves out clutter, so the results focus on what you care about.
This tool sends your whole picture, so crop it on your device first. Some engines, Bing among them, also let you crop after the results open.
Use the largest, clearest copy you have. Very small images give the engines little to work with.
In the Image URL tab, paste the address of the image file itself, not the page it sits on. The engines download the picture from that address.
Files must be under 10 MB. For a bigger photo, our image compressor accepts files up to 25 MB and can shrink them first.
You can't paste an image from your clipboard here. Save it as a file and upload it, or paste its web address into the Image URL tab.

On a phone

The tool works on mobile browsers. On a phone, the Camera tab asks for the outward-facing camera, so you can photograph a product, plant or sign and search it.

Coming back to a search

Recent Searches keeps up to 10 searches in this browser only. It saves a small preview and the link the engines used, not a full copy of your photo.

An uploaded photo's link lasts about an hour, so an older upload can't be reopened. Searches by image URL reopen as long as that image stays online.

What an image search can't find

Some photos stay out of reach, even when they are online:

Posts behind a login, such as private accounts. Google says it won't crawl a page that needs a log-in to view.
Images on sites that block search engines. Site owners can keep their images out of Google's results with a robots.txt file.
Pages an engine hasn't reached yet. TinEye says that when it misses an image, it simply hasn't crawled that page yet.

So an empty results page doesn't prove a photo is original or genuine. Not every false or out-of-context image can be caught this way.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is reverse image search?

It lets you search the internet using an image instead of text. It helps you find similar images, identify what is in a photo, find the original source, or discover where else an image appears online.

How does searching by image work?

Upload an image or paste a URL and the tool builds a search for each major engine. Each engine compares your picture with the images in its own index and shows the matches it finds. Most also show visually similar pictures.

Which image search engine is best?

It depends on the task: Google Lens is best for identifying objects and products, Yandex is best for finding other sizes of a picture, TinEye is best for finding the exact original and tracking usage, and Bing is great for shopping. Trying several gives the most complete results — which is why this tool links them all.

Can I reverse image search from my phone?

Yes. The tool works in any mobile browser. Upload a photo from your gallery, paste an image URL, or use the Camera option to take a picture and search it on the spot.

Is this tool free?

Yes — completely free with no registration or login, and no limit on the number of searches.

Is my data secure?

An uploaded image is kept at a temporary, unlisted link that only the engines you click receive, and it is deleted automatically after about an hour. We don’t use your images for anything else.