How to reverse image search on iPhone
The quickest way is Google Lens: in the Google app, tap the camera icon in the search bar and pick a photo from your camera roll. In Chrome, touch and hold any image and choose to search it with Google. Both find copies of a picture; to find a person, search their face instead.
How to reverse image search a photo from your camera roll
- Install the free Google app from the App Store and open it.
- Tap the camera (Google Lens) icon on the right of the search bar.
- Allow access to your photos, then pick the image you want to search.
- Drag the corners of the box to the part of the picture you care about.
- Scroll the results: visual matches, pages that use the image, and similar pictures.
Screenshots work too. If someone sent you a picture in a chat app, save it or screenshot it first, then pick it in Lens.
How to reverse image search a picture on a web page
- In Chrome for iPhone: touch and hold the image, then choose the option to search the image with Google.
- In the Google app’s browser: touch and hold the image and pick the Lens search option.
- In Safari: Safari has no built-in Google image search, so save the image to Photos and use the Google app, or open the page in Chrome.
- On a computer: right-click any image in Chrome and choose to search it with Google.
What about Visual Look Up in the Photos app?
iPhones have their own image recognition. When the info button in Photos shows a small sparkle, tap it to identify landmarks, plants, pets, art and some objects.
It’s handy, but it isn’t a web search, and it won’t tell you where else a picture of a person appears online.
How to reverse image search on Android
- Google Photos: open the photo and tap the Lens button.
- Circle to Search, on many recent Android phones: press and hold the home button or navigation bar, then circle the image.
- Chrome for Android: touch and hold an image, then choose to search it with Google Lens.
- The Google app works the same way as on iPhone: tap the camera icon in the search bar.
Why reverse image search misses people
Google Lens and TinEye look for the same picture, or pictures that look alike overall. If someone crops, flips or re-shoots a photo, or posts a different picture of the same person, they often won’t connect them.
Google Lens also generally avoids identifying people from their faces. That’s why a dating-profile photo can come back with “similar images” of strangers and nothing useful.
A face search works differently: it compares the face itself, so it can find other photos of that person on public pages. The reverse image search a person page explains the difference in more detail.
Getting better results on a phone
- Use the biggest version of the image you can get. Tap to open it full size before you save it.
- Crop tightly to what you want to find: one face, one product, one building.
- Avoid screenshots with app buttons, captions or stickers over the picture.
- Try more than one photo of the same thing, because each search only sees one image.
- For people, use a clear, front-facing photo with good light.