How to reverse image search

What you need before you start

All you need is the picture itself or a link to it. A photo from your phone, a saved download or a screenshot all work, and so does the address of an image that is already online. The better the image, the better the results, so use the largest and least edited version you have.

If you only have a screenshot, crop it so that only the picture remains. Borders, captions and app buttons around the image give the search engines extra details to match against, and they can pull the results towards unrelated pages.

Step by step with this tool

The search tool on our homepage has three tabs, and each one starts the search in a different way.

1. Upload tab: choose a JPEG, PNG or WebP file up to 10 MB, drag it onto the upload area, or paste it from your clipboard.
2. Image URL tab: paste a direct link to a public image if the picture is already online.
3. Keyword tab: type a few words to open normal image searches instead of a reverse search.
4. Press the search button. For an uploaded file, the tool first shrinks the image inside your browser and then prepares one link for each search engine.
5. Open each engine from its card. Every engine opens in its own tab and shows its own results.

How to read the results

Reverse image search results usually mix exact copies with pictures that only look similar. Exact copies tell you where the image has been published. Similar pictures can help you find the same subject, the same product or a better version of the shot.

Do not judge by the first result alone. Scroll a little and look at the details that matter for your question:

• Pages that contain exactly the same picture, and which of them look like original publishers rather than reposts.
• The largest or cleanest version of the image.
• Dates on the pages, especially the earliest one.
• Captions, photographer credits and watermarks.
• Differences between versions, such as crops, filters or added text.

Why one engine is not enough

Every search engine keeps its own index of the web, and each uses its own methods to decide what counts as a match. A picture that returns nothing in one engine can return plenty in another. Google Lens is strong for products and well-known pages, Bing is useful for objects and landmarks, Yandex often finds copies on smaller or regional sites, and TinEye is built to trace exact and edited copies. Our comparison guide explains the differences in more detail.

That is why the tool prepares all four engines at once. Opening two or three of them takes less than a minute and noticeably improves your chances.

Tips for better results

Small changes to the image often make a bigger difference than switching engines.

• Crop the picture so the subject fills most of the frame.
• Use the highest-quality version you have. Heavily compressed or tiny images match poorly.
• Remove borders, captions, stickers and interface elements before searching.
• If the full picture finds nothing, search again with its most distinctive part.
• If a picture was mirrored or filtered, try the original orientation or a plainer version.
• Add a keyword search afterwards. Describing the subject in words can reveal pages that image matching missed.

When a reverse image search will not help

A reverse image search can only find what a search engine has already indexed. Pictures that have never been published, images shared only in private messages or closed social accounts, and photos taken yesterday are often missing from every index. Images created with AI tools have no original source to trace, and heavily edited images can look like entirely new pictures to a matching system.

No results does not mean an image is fake or new. It only means these engines found nothing to compare it with.

What happens to your image

When you upload a file, it is shrunk in your browser and stored temporarily so the search engines can fetch it. It expires after 10 minutes, and Start Over removes it sooner where possible. Image links and keywords you type are not stored by us. Each search engine has its own privacy policy for what it keeps.