What is TinEye?
TinEye is a reverse image search engine. You give it an image by uploading it, pasting it, dragging it in or entering its URL, and it shows you where that image appears on the web. It is useful for finding out where a picture came from, how it is being used, whether modified versions exist, or where to get a higher resolution copy. Instead of keywords, file names or metadata, TinEye creates a compact digital fingerprint of your image and compares it against the images in its index, which it builds by crawling the web.
TinEye finds exact and altered copies of an image, including ones that have been cropped, colour adjusted, resized, heavily edited or slightly rotated. It does not look for visually similar pictures and does not do facial recognition, so it will not find different photos of the same person or object. It is made by Idee Inc., a Canadian image recognition company that also sells the TinEye API and other image matching products. TinEye says it never adds your uploaded images to its index and only keeps them briefly to show your results.
Main Features
- Search by uploading, pasting, dragging in an image or entering its URL
- Finds cropped, resized, colour adjusted, edited and slightly rotated copies
- Matching based on an image fingerprint, not keywords or metadata
- Uploaded images are not added to the TinEye index
- Browser extensions for Firefox, Chrome, Edge and Opera with right-click search
- Mobile-friendly website that works on phones and tablets
- TinEye API with search bundles for commercial and large scale use
- MatchEngine for searching inside your own image collection
How to Get Started with TinEye
- Go to tineye.com in any browser.
- Upload an image, paste it, drag it onto the page or enter the image URL.
- Review the list of matches, including any cropped or edited versions TinEye found.
- Open the matching pages to check where and when the image was used, and install the browser extension if you want to search any web image with a right-click.
TinEye Pricing
Searching on tineye.com is free for non-commercial use. For commercial use, TinEye sells the TinEye API in prepaid search bundles of 5,000, 10,000, 50,000 or 1,000,000 searches. Bundles are valid for two years from purchase and can be bought pay-as-you-go or with auto top-up. Bundle prices are shown when you buy searches through TinEye's services site.
Who Should Use It?
- Journalists and fact-checkers tracing where a viral photo first appeared
- Photographers and artists checking where their work is being used
- Researchers who need to find the original or a higher resolution version of an image
- Brands and rights holders monitoring copies of their images
- Anyone checking whether a picture in a listing or post has been taken from elsewhere
TinEye Alternatives
- InVID-WeVerify Plugin: a free browser extension that runs reverse image searches on several engines and adds video and forensic tools.
- FotoForensics: a free photo forensics site that shows Error Level Analysis and metadata for an image.
- Forensically: free in-browser photo forensics tools such as clone detection and noise analysis.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is TinEye free?
Yes, for non-commercial use. You can search on tineye.com without paying. Commercial users are asked to use the paid TinEye API, which is sold in prepaid search bundles.
Can TinEye identify a person in a photo?
No. TinEye does not do facial recognition and cannot recognise the contents of an image. It only finds copies of the same image, including edited versions, so it is a tool for tracing where a picture came from, not for identifying people.
Does TinEye keep the images I upload?
TinEye says it never adds uploaded images to its search index and only stores them briefly so it can show you your results.