TinEye
Reverse image search built for finding the oldest instance of an image and tracking how it was modified.
What should journalists know about TinEye?
TinEye indexes 78+ billion images and does one thing well: finding exact and near-exact copies of an image across the web, sorted by date. That 'sort by oldest' feature is genuinely unique — neither Google nor Yandex offer it — and it is the fastest way to debunk a photo claimed to be from a current crisis but actually published years earlier. TinEye also detects crops, color shifts, overlays, and resolution changes that Google Lens misses. But its coverage has real gaps. User reports from late 2024 describe sub-2% hit rates on some queries, and Google's broader crawl regularly surfaces results TinEye does not. Yandex outperforms both for facial recognition (85-95% accuracy vs. TinEye's ~30-40%) and Eastern European/Asian content. TinEye cannot identify people, objects, or scenes — it matches pixel patterns, not semantics. The right workflow for verification: run TinEye first for date-sorted provenance, then Google Lens for broader coverage, then Yandex if faces matter. No single tool is sufficient.
Verifying whether a viral photo is original or recycled from an older event. Finding the earliest known appearance of an image online (sort-by-oldest). Detecting cropped, filtered, or watermarked versions of a photo. Copyright enforcement for photographers and publishers.
Identifying people in photos — TinEye matches images, not faces. Finding visually similar but non-identical images (it needs pixel-level overlap). Real-time social media monitoring. AI-generated image detection. Any use case requiring object or scene recognition.
Security & Privacy
Data is scrambled while being sent to their servers
Data is scrambled when stored on their servers
Where servers are located — affects which governments can request your data
Privacy policy summary
Strong for a search tool. Uploaded images are fingerprinted, matched against the index, and deleted within seconds — TinEye explicitly states images are never saved, never indexed, and never used for training. No search history is stored. No account required for free web searches. No data sold to third parties. API users have separate terms. Canadian jurisdiction under PIPEDA is favorable compared to US-based alternatives.
How to protect yourself:
Do not upload images that could identify a confidential source — even though TinEye deletes uploads, the image crosses the network. Use TinEye alongside Google Lens and Yandex for broader coverage. For sensitive verification, download the image locally and upload it rather than sharing the original URL. Consider that TinEye's index skews toward Western web content; verify coverage gaps with regional tools.
Canadian jurisdiction under PIPEDA. No account required for basic use. Images deleted within seconds of search — never stored, indexed, or used for training. No search history retained. No data sold. Bootstrapped company with no investor pressure to monetize user data. One of the cleanest privacy postures among verification tools.
Who Owns This
Known issues
Hit rate has degraded — multiple user reports from late 2024 describe finding zero results on queries that Google and Yandex match easily. TinEye's 78B-image index sounds large but covers a fraction of the web. No facial recognition — matches pixel patterns, not faces; Yandex or PimEyes are far more effective for identifying people. Free web search has an undisclosed daily limit; heavy verification workflows will hit it with no clear error. Cannot detect AI-generated images. API pricing is steep for small newsrooms ($200 for 5K searches, no free API tier). No mobile app — field verification requires browser workarounds.
Pricing
Free for manual searches on tineye.com (limited daily volume, exact cap undisclosed). API search bundles start at $200 for 5,000 searches (pay-as-you-go or auto top-up at 75% usage). MatchEngine (private collection matching) runs $200/mo (Starter: 5K images, 1K searches) to $1,500/mo (Corporate: 500K images, 150K searches). Enterprise pricing is custom.
This is an editorial assessment based on publicly available information as of 2026-04-02, using our published methodology. Independent security review is pending. Security posture can change at any time. This is not a guarantee of safety.
Something wrong or outdated? Report it.