This post highlights some of the Greenlane team's favorite reverse image search tools, with the pros and cons of each broken out.
Most of us turn to Google to search for information and images, but sometimes you may want to look up an image you already have. Maybe you want to find out where it originated, expose it as a fake photo, or verify the claims of whoever posted it. Whatever your motivation, this is known as a reverse image search.
It’s easy to do a reverse image search on a Mac or PC, but what if you want to do it on your smartphone? You have a few different options, so we’ll show you how to perform a reverse image search in Android or iOS using your browser, through a website, or using third-party apps.
How to reverse search an image using Chrome
If you’re using Chrome on Android or iOS, then it’s very easy to perform a reverse image search. Here’s how:
- Navigate to the image in question in the Chrome browser.
- Tap and hold on the image until a menu of options pops up.
- Tap on Search Google for this image.
- Take a look at the results.
What if someone sent you the image or you already have it downloaded on your phone? Don’t worry, there’s a way to upload it to perform a reverse image search, it’s just a bit more hassle. This next method will work with any browser.
How to reverse search an image on an Android phone
To upload an image to perform the reverse image search on, you need to get to the desktop version of Google’s image search. Here’s how:
- Go to images.google.com in your browser.
- You want the desktop version, so you’ll need to request it. In Chrome, tap the three dots at the top right to open the More menu.
- Tick the Desktop site option.
- Tap on the wee camera icon to get the option to upload an image.
How to reverse search an image on an iPhone
You can do the same thing in iOS, but the route is slightly different. Here’s how:
- Go to images.google.com in your browser.
- You want the desktop version, so you’ll need to request it. In Safari, tap the Share icon, with the arrow pointing up, to open the share menu.
- Scroll along the bottom options until you find Request Desktop Site and tap it.
- Tap on the tiny camera icon to get the option to upload an image.
How to reverse image search using a website
You have a few more options if you want to perform a reverse image search, regardless of which mobile platform or web browser you’re using. Here is a website that will help you perform a reverse image search:
- In your web browser of choice, navigate to tineye.com.
- Tap the arrow icon to the left of the search box to upload a picture.
- You can choose to take a picture using your device’s camera, pick an image from your device’s photo gallery, or browse for another location. The options you’ll get are slightly different depending on your phone.
- Once your picture is uploaded, which can take a few seconds, you’ll see any matches found.
How to use an app to perform a reverse image search
There are lots of apps that will allow you to perform a reverse image search in Android or iOS, all of which can spare you from having to open your browser every time you want to look up a picture. Here are a few of the best.
Photo Sherlock
This app enables you to upload an image from your gallery or snap a photo and perform a quick reverse image search in Google and Yandex. It’s straightforward and easy to use — simply tap the gallery or camera icon at the bottom, crop if you want to, and do the search.
Reversee
Reversee is a decent option for iPhone owners and it allows you to rotate and crop images before you search. It also works as an iOS extension, so you can use it within apps like Photos, Safari, and Chrome. The pro version comes with a host of additional features and no adverts, allowing you to edit images, search multiple engines (Google, Bing, and Yandex), paste image URLs, and gather detailed info about the images that appear in your results.
Search By Image
Like Reversee, the Search By Image app for Android lets you make simple edits to your images before using them for search purposes. It has every feature you would want in a reverse image search app, including support for Google, Yandex, and Tineye and the ability to open shared images directly from Facebook or Twitter. You can get rid of the ads with a one-off payment.
Editors' Recommendations
If you have an image for which you want to know where the image originated from, you need to utilize the reverse image search technique. It easy to perform on a desktop (just to head to images.google.com and upload the image you want the details for).
For iOS devices, it depends on what browser you are using (or if you want to get an app installed to perform a reverse image search on iPhone). We shall discuss a couple of methods to help you perform a reverse image search on iPhone.
Note:The methods listed here should work on iOS 9 or above.
AdvertisingReverse Image Search On iPhone Using Safari
Safari, being the default browser app on iPhone does not provide an option like Chrome does to perform a reverse search while browsing. However, if you have the image on your device (or the URL of the image), you can request the desktop version of Google Images. Follow the steps below to perform a quick reverse image search on your iPhone:
- Head to images.google.com
- Tap on the share button at the bottom of the window. Scroll left (to find the options in the right side).
- Now, tap on “Request Desktop Site” to reload the webpage.
- Finally, you will observe a camera icon near the search bar to either upload the image or paste the URL to perform a reverse image search.
Reverse Image Search On iPhone Using Google Chrome
If you want to perform a reverse image search while browsing the web (without requiring to save the image to your device), we will recommend you to utilize the Google Chrome browser on your iPhone.
Here’s how it is done:
1. Install Google Chrome from the App Store.
2. Once you have it installed, head to any webpage which contains the image you are curious about.
3. Tap and hold the image to find a few options pop up, you will find an option “Search Google For This Image“. Hit it to start looking for it on Google.
2. Once you have it installed, head to any webpage which contains the image you are curious about.
3. Tap and hold the image to find a few options pop up, you will find an option “Search Google For This Image“. Hit it to start looking for it on Google.
In case you have the image already on your device, you can follow the steps below:
- Head to images.google.com
- Tap on the menu icon at the top-right corner (three dots).
- Next, tap on “Request Desktop Site“.
- Now, you will find an icon in the search bar which allows you to upload an image or paste the URL of an image to perform a reverse search.
![Search Search](http://4.bp.blogspot.com/--zBYpBgL8EI/VHq7mgDxtMI/AAAAAAAArH8/wrT3EhiLPUM/s1600/1.png)
Reverse Image Search On iPhone Using 3rd Party Applications
Using Reversee App To Reverse Image Search On iPhone
Reversee is a free app available at the App Store which allows you to perform a reverse image search by utilizing multiple search engines in a jiffy. There’s more to it.
You can even have an extension “Reversee” on your Safari browser, which can be accessed by tapping the share option at the bottom of the screen (As shown in the image above).
If you do that, every image on the particular web page you were on will be curated together and then you can tap on any of them to search for the image on Google. In addition, you can even crop/adjust the image before searching the image.
Using Veracity App To Reverse Image Search On iPhone
Yet another simple reverse image search app – Veracity. We’re not sure what search engine it fetches the data from – but it helps to identify the content. Suppose, you want to find the original source of a fake social profile, you will get to know it with the help of Veracity.
I even tried to perform a reverse image search by uploading a meme and it exactly pointed out the Pinterest URL which was the original source for it. You can also edit the photos with this app – however – you need to pay around a dollar to unlock the functionality.
Wrapping Up
Now that you know to perform a reverse image search on iPhone, get started searching for the precious thing you were most curious about!
Which method do you prefer to perform a reverse image search on your iPhone? Do you happen to know better techniques to reverse image search on iPhone? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
Filed in Cellphones. Read more about iOS and iPhone.
![Reverse image search google mobile Reverse image search google mobile](/uploads/1/2/5/5/125541507/523107235.png)
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