How to find stolen copies of your photos online (2026)

To find stolen copies of your photos online, start with reverse image search, then check the places search engines often miss, such as marketplaces, print-on-demand shops and social platforms. Before you contact anyone, document every useful hit with the full URL, a full-page screenshot, the date you found it, and your own proof of authorship.

That is the whole workflow in one sentence.

This guide walks through the process step by step. It names the free tools that are good enough for a one-off check, explains where manual searching starts to break down, and shows where ImageTrace fits when you want the finding, monitoring and evidence collection handled in one workflow.

The workflow at a glance

1. Run a reverse image search.
2. Check marketplaces, print-on-demand sites and social platforms.
3. Capture evidence before you contact the person or company using the image.
4. Decide whether to ignore, request credit, send a takedown, invoice, license, or escalate.
5. Use a monitoring tool if you need to repeat this across a portfolio.

If you only need to check one or two images once, free tools may be enough. If you have a portfolio, client archive, stock library or commercial photo set to protect over time, manual searching quickly becomes too slow.

Step 1: Run a reverse image search

Reverse image search means uploading a photo and getting back pages where that photo, or something visually close to it, appears.

It is the fastest way to go from “I think this image was used somewhere” to a list of possible URLs.

The free options are real, and for checking a single image once they are often the best place to start:

• Google Images / Lens - free and usually the strongest first check for broad web coverage. Upload via images.google.com or use Google Lens.
• TinEye - useful for finding modified or older TinEye-indexed copies. TinEye can sort by oldest, but that means the earliest copy TinEye found, not proof of who published first. TinEye explains this in its own help docs: What does TinEye first found on mean?
• Bing Visual Search - useful as a second pass because every search engine has different coverage.
• Yandex Images - sometimes finds matches that other engines miss, especially across different languages or regions. Be careful with unpublished or sensitive client work when uploading to any third-party search engine.

If you only have one or two photos to check, start with these. They are free and they work well enough for many one-off checks.

The honest catch is repetition. Doing this manually for every image, every month, across a full portfolio is where it stops being practical.

Whichever tool you use, search with the highest-resolution version you have. Thumbnails, compressed exports and social-media versions usually give weaker matches.

Step 2: Check the places search engines do not reach well

A lot of unauthorised photo use does not happen on neatly indexed blogs.

It happens in places that general search engines can miss, crawl badly, or show inconsistently:

• Marketplaces - Etsy, eBay, Amazon, AliExpress, Bol and Marktplaats. A photo can end up on a product listing, banner, fake stock download or reseller page.
• Print-on-demand shops - posters, phone cases, mugs, shirts and wall art on sites like Redbubble, Society6 and smaller POD stores.
• Social platforms - Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, TikTok and LinkedIn. Reposts often remove the credit, caption and original context.
• Forums and niche communities - small sites can reuse images without showing up in the first pages of search results.
• Foreign-language sites - copied images may appear in markets or languages you would not normally search.

For these, search manually when the image is important. Try your photographer name, the subject, the location, unique visible text, event names, product names, and combinations of those terms inside the platform’s own search.

This is slow and incomplete, but it catches cases that a normal reverse image search can miss.

Step 3: Document the evidence before you act

This is the step people skip, and it is usually the most important one.

Pages get edited. Listings disappear. Captions change. Product pages go offline. If you ever want to send an invoice, takedown, licence request or cease-and-desist letter, capture the evidence before you contact anyone.

For every useful hit, record:

1. The full URL of the page using your photo.
2. A full-page screenshot showing your photo in context, not just a cropped view of the image.
3. The date you captured the evidence.
4. Any visible commercial context, such as price, product listing, ad placement, company name, download button or sales page.
5. A first-found or first-seen date, if your tool provides one. Treat this as a tool-specific discovery date, not absolute proof of first publication.
6. Your proof of authorship, such as the original RAW file, full-resolution export, capture date, metadata, project folder, invoice, publication record or client delivery history.

Keep everything together, one folder per case.

A tidy evidence trail is the difference between a serious claim and a vague email that can be ignored.

Step 4: Decide what kind of response makes sense

Finding a copy does not automatically mean you should act.

Look at the context first:

• Is it licensed?
• Is there credit?
• Is it editorial, educational, personal or commercial?
• Is it old or recent?
• Is it a small repost or a product being sold?
• Is the user a business, publisher, agency, marketplace seller or private person?
• Is the relationship worth preserving?

Then choose your response.

• Ignore it - for minor uses that do not bother you, or credited shares that help you.
• Ask for credit - useful for low-value editorial or community use where money is not the goal.
• Request a takedown - for clearly unauthorised use you do not want online.
• Send an invoice or licence offer - useful when a business used the image commercially.
• Send a formal letter - when the use is serious enough to justify a stronger response.
• Escalate - for repeat, high-value or difficult cases where a lawyer or managed enforcement service makes sense.

The point of steps 1 to 3 is to reach step 4 with enough information to choose well.

Manual workflow vs ImageTrace

Where ImageTrace fits

Everything above can be done by hand.

ImageTrace exists for the moment that stops scaling: when you have a portfolio instead of a single image, and you want the search and evidence process to run on a schedule instead of whenever you remember.

ImageTrace automates steps 1 to 3:

• It scans the web for copies of your photo across public pages, marketplaces, print-on-demand sources, blogs and social sources.
• It uses image matching designed to handle common changes such as crops, resizing, re-encoding, filters and many watermarks.
• For each useful match, it gives you the matched URL, screenshot and match details.
• It exports a structured PDF evidence report with an editable demand or cease-and-desist letter in English or Dutch.
• Recurring monitoring can keep checking and notify you when new matches appear.

The important boundary is this: ImageTrace does not pursue infringers, remove content, invoice, license or negotiate for you.

It finds the matches and gives you the evidence. You decide whether to invoice, request a licence, send a takedown, escalate or ignore the use.

That is different from managed enforcement services. Services like Pixsy and Copytrack can pursue cases for you, but their business model usually involves a success fee or commission. Pixsy currently says it charges 50% of successful recovery, and Copytrack’s current enforcement terms mention 45%. Always check current terms before choosing a service.

ImageTrace works differently: flat pricing from €5 per scan, no commission, and you keep 100% of anything you recover yourself.

Credits cost €1 each and do not expire. One standard scan uses 5 credits, and loyalty levels can lower the effective price per scan. Your first scan is free and does not require a card. ImageTrace is EU-hosted and built with GDPR in mind.

For a deeper look at how the free search engines compare, read the companion piece: Reverse image search for photographers: Google, TinEye, Yandex, and ImageTrace compared.

What free tools are best for finding stolen photos?

For a one-off check, use more than one tool:

• Start with Google Lens for broad discovery.
• Use TinEye to look for modified versions and older TinEye-indexed copies.
• Try Bing Visual Search as a second opinion.
• Try Yandex Images if the image may have spread across different languages or regions.

No single tool finds everything. Every search engine has different coverage, different refresh speed and different matching behaviour.

What to do after you find a stolen photo

Once you find a likely unauthorised copy, do not immediately send an angry message.

Use this order:

1. Capture the evidence.
2. Check whether the use might already be licensed or credited.
3. Identify who controls the page, seller account or publication.
4. Decide whether you want credit, removal, payment or escalation.
5. Send the right kind of message for that goal.

For a small blog, a polite licence or credit request may be enough. For a business selling products with your photo, an invoice or formal demand may make more sense. For repeated or high-value infringement, get legal advice.

This article is practical workflow guidance, not legal advice.

FAQ

Can I check for stolen photos online for free?

Yes, for a one-off check. Google Images, Google Lens, TinEye, Bing Visual Search and Yandex Images let you do manual reverse image searches at no cost. Free tools start to fall short when you need to check many images repeatedly, document evidence, or find heavily modified and marketplace-based copies.

What is the best reverse image search for stolen photos?

For a free manual search, start with Google Lens and TinEye. Google Lens is usually the best first pass for broad discovery. TinEye is useful for modified images and older TinEye-indexed copies. For recurring monitoring and evidence reports, ImageTrace is the better fit.

Why do search engines miss my photo on Etsy, Redbubble or other marketplaces?

Marketplace and print-on-demand listings are often generated, paginated, duplicated, removed or blocked in ways that general search engines do not always crawl well. You can search those platforms by hand, or use a tool that is built to monitor those sources more directly.

Do I need a screenshot, or is the URL enough?

Take a screenshot. URLs can disappear, pages can be edited, and listings can be removed. A full-page screenshot with the URL and capture date is much stronger than a URL alone.

Can reverse image search find cropped or edited copies?

Sometimes. Free tools can find many copies, but heavily cropped, resized, filtered, compressed or watermarked versions are harder. Purpose-built image matching can help with those cases, but no tool can guarantee every copy.

What should I do when I find an unauthorised copy?

First document it. Then decide whether to ignore it, ask for credit, request a takedown, send an invoice or licence offer, send a formal letter, or escalate to a lawyer or enforcement service.

Does ImageTrace send takedowns for me?

No. ImageTrace gives you the match, screenshot, evidence report and editable letter. You decide whether to send it, change it, escalate or do nothing.

Does ImageTrace take a percentage of what I recover?

No. ImageTrace charges a flat fee per scan and takes no commission. If you recover money yourself, you keep 100%.

What does ImageTrace cost?

ImageTrace starts from €5 per scan. Credits cost €1 each and do not expire. One standard scan uses 5 credits. Loyalty levels can reduce the effective scan cost, and the first scan is free without a card.

Try it on one image

The fastest way to understand the workflow is to test one photo.

Run it through Google Lens and TinEye for a manual check. Then try ImageTrace if you want the finding, screenshot, evidence report, editable letter and recurring monitoring in one place.

Try ImageTrace - your first scan is free, no card required.