The Ultimate Guide to Free Image Search Online (Updated April 2017)

We know that you want to jump right to our favourite websites for free image search. But for now, let’s take a look at different licence types and how you can spot them when looking for free images.

For those who can’t wait, here comes a little overview with links to the free image search sites that we will introduce you to below.

On top of that, there exists the so called “Public Domain Dedication” (CC0 1.0). It means that images are not protected by any licence.

Basically, it’s the public that owns these materials. You can thus use all of them for free, without a source, for private and commercial purposes.

A possible source of problems: You can’t tell if the person who uploaded the work and waived the rights, is in fact the creator.

Some websites also work with their own licence agreements.

We researched them for all of our favourite sites for free image search. You simply need to check out the links that we put to their usage terms (Licences and Use).

If there is no clear indication of the copyright it’s better if you keep looking for a different image. Or contact the creator in person and ask for permission.

Also, the websites often state specific requirements for commercial vs non-commercial use. For example: You often can include the picture in your blog for free. But not to use it as magazine cover photo and print it 20,000 times.

Again, every site has different terms here but a rule of thumb could be: The more commercial the usage of media is the larger your potential liability.

But to be sure you always have to read each website’s usage terms!

It is easy to get confused when it comes to websites to help you with your free image search. To save you time and trouble, we put together a comprehensive list with the most useful sites out there on the world wide web.

You can easily compare them with our 3 criteria:

1. Can you use a search function to find the images you are looking for?
2. Can you see the free images in different categories?
3. Do you need to sign up to access the free image search?

“The big search engine”. What many people do not know:

With the Advanced Image Search, you can target images with specific licences. Or simply go to the Google Image Search and select your wanted licence type under “Tools/Usage Rights”.

The results are from various sources and usually CC licences (see infographic). Still, you should check the copyright and owner’s rights of the selected image before you use it.

Wikimedia is the “media department” of Wikipedia and a good address for free image search.

Wikimedia Commons has millions of royalty-free pictures usable under Creative Commons terms. In the archive, there are currently more than 38 million media files.

Flickr is the largest photo community on the internet. The “Advanced Search” gives you the option to search only for content with Creative Commons licences.

Compfight is a picture search engine that uses Flickr as its source. When searching, look on the left sidebar. There is also an option to filter specific licences.

Note: A few chargeable photos appear on top before the search results.

Photo Pin is another free image search engine sourcing its photos from Flickr. Like in Photo Pin, use the left bar to select your desired licence type.

Note: The site also advertises for paid photos.

Every Stock Photo searches for photos with a free licence from different sources. It includes, amongst others, a community where you can collect, tag and comment on photos.

Under “advanced search” you can limit your search query to certain licence types. The site is well structured and clear. Currently, the archive contains more than 29 million stock photos.

The IconFinder searches the Internet for icons of all kinds. In the menu on the left, here is the option of switching to “Price/Free” to filter for specific licences.

Pixabay is a community for sharing “Public Domain Images” (see explanation above). The page is great for free image search: It’s attractive, well stocked and has an excellent navigation function.
Without registration, you still can access all images besides the highest resolution. You just have to enter a code to confirm the download.
Note: In the first row the results show chargeable pictures from “shutterstock”.

Picsearch is a technology that constantly crawls the web to create its own image index. Like Google Image Search it provides you with links to third party websites. That’s why the images may have all kinds of different licences.

Note: The images that show up in the search results are not automatically free to use. Make sure to check out the terms of each website displayed in the results!

123RF is a royalty free usable digital media library. It offers many commercial and editorial images, video, audio clips, logos and graphics.

Under the hidden section “Free Downloads” there are currently 30,000 free files. The quality of the images is very professional. A free download is only possible in low resolution (up to 450 x 350 px) which should be enough for web projects.

Their Free Image Licence allows the use for advertising and design, on blogs and in collages. To credit the owner is not required in the licence terms but to be on the safe side you should add a reference anyway.

Freerange Stock is a platform for free stock photos and textures. The photos are either from Freerange Stock itself or from the photographic community. According to their terms, you can use the images for commercial and private purposes.

Free Images is a subsidiary of the fee-based Getty Images and another database for free image search. Here you can find over 350,000 pictures from more than 30.000 photographers, some of them in high resolution.

The images have a royalty free licence and you may use them for digital and print formats. For commercial use of the image, you should seek the permission to reproduce from the owner.

Note: You again will see some chargeable photos before your free search results.

At Free Digital Photos you can download free stock photos, e.g. for websites or advertising. Images are either produced by the in-house photographers or come from the community.

The images have a default royalty free licence. Free pictures are only available in the 400×400 px format. But this should be enough for most web projects. A source reference is required.

Note: There are some paid stock photos on top of the free search results.

PhotoRack offers over 27,000 images in 149 categories. Unfortunately, we haven’t found a search function so far. But all images are categorised well and may be used for private and commercial purposes.

In RGBstock is a free image search database with more than 100,000 stock images are available for personal and commercial use. You can include them in web pages, blogs and under certain conditions in printed products.

PIQS is a German photo community. All pictures are free for personal (web) projects also if used for commercial purposes. The images carry a Creative Commons name registration licence.

4freephotos was founded by a group of photographers who make their photos public domain available. In 4freephotos you can find public domain photos for commercial and personal use. In return, a link to their website is required.

Pixelio is another German website hosting a free database for royalty free pictures. For your free image search you can currently choose from more than 500,000 pictures.

There are two types of licences: (1) editorial and (2) editorial/commercial. Both prohibit direct sales of products featuring the images. Also, you always need to include a reference to the owner and source (e.g. ©Photographer’s Name / PIXELIO).

Dreamstime is one of the world’s leading agencies for stock photography. Besides professional fee photos there is a section for free pictures on the website. There are more than 930,000 files.