Google Lens

2011

Search by Image launched

Google announcements

2017

Google Lens launched

Google I/O 2017

$0

Cost per search

Google, Nov 2026

What does Google Lens do?

Google Lens takes an image, a camera view or a screenshot and returns what Google can say about it: similar images, objects and products it recognises, text it can read and translate, and web pages that carry the same or a similar picture. The Google Images upload box on the desktop now opens Lens as well, which is why the old "Search by Image" is often described as Lens today. Google's help page lists upload, drag and drop, paste an image link, and right-click in Chrome as the ways to start a search (Google Search Help, checked November 6, 2026).

It is a reverse image search, not a reverse face search. Lens compares whole images and the things in them. It does not build a face embedding and compare it with faces seen elsewhere, so it finds copies and crops of a picture reliably and other photos of the same person only by accident, usually when the person is a public figure with a knowledge panel.

How do you search with an image?

What do the results show?

Google's help page says results can include an AI overview, results for objects in the image, similar images, and "websites with the image or a similar one". The last category is the one that answers "where has this picture been published". A Find image source button narrows the results to pages that carry the same picture, which is the closest Lens comes to a source page lookup. Google notes that browsers do not keep the URLs you search in their history, but that Google may store them in your account's Web and App Activity.

1. Step 1

   Upload or point

   A file, a link or the camera. Lens detects objects, text and regions.

   ›
2. Step 2

   Match

   The image and its regions are compared with Google's index of images and products.

   ›
3. Step 3

   Visual matches

   Similar images, with the pages they come from.

   ›
4. Step 4

   Find image source

   Filters to pages that carry the same picture, including crops and resizes.

Why does it not find faces?

Google has said for years that it limits face matching in its consumer products on purpose; its former chairman described a face search engine as a product Google chose not to build. Lens therefore has no one-to-many matching over faces on the web. In practice, uploading a portrait returns pictures with similar composition, clothing or background, and the same person only when the exact photo has been republished. For the job of finding other photos of a face, people turn to face-first engines such as PimEyes, FaceCheck.ID or FaceSearch.

How do you get a photo of yourself out of Google?

There is nothing to opt out of in Lens itself; it searches the web, not a face database. What Google offers is removal from Search results: the Results about you tool for pages that show your personal contact details, a request form for non-consensual intimate images, and a form for images of minors. Removal from Google's results does not remove the image from the website that hosts it; that needs a request to the site owner or a DMCA takedown where you own the copyright. The opt-out routes directory lists Google's forms next to the face engines' opt-outs.