How to reverse image search on iPhone.

From any app, with the Share Sheet

The fastest method is to search straight from the iOS Share Sheet, so you never have to save, switch apps, or upload anything by hand. This is what Sauce Finder is built for: it adds a share extension that runs a reverse image search on whatever you share to it.

1. 01Install Sauce Finder from the App Store (free, iOS 16.2 or later, iPhone and iPad).
2. 02Open the image in Photos, Safari, Messages, Files, or X/Twitter and tap the Share button. In Safari you can also long-press an image and choose Share.
3. 03Pick Sauce Finder from the row of apps. If it isn't there, scroll to the end of the row, tap More, and turn it on.
4. 04Your default engine runs right away and the results open inside the extension. Switch to another engine with one tap if the first one doesn't find it.

If an app doesn't offer a Share button for its images, take a screenshot, tap the thumbnail that appears in the corner, crop it, and share it from there. Anything you can see on screen can be searched this way. The free version searches with Google Lens; Premium adds SauceNAO, TinEye, and Yandex and lets you choose which one runs by default.

With the Google app (Google Lens)

Google Lens is Google's reverse image search, and on iPhone it lives inside the free Google app rather than in Safari.

1. 01Download the Google app from the App Store and open it.
2. 02Tap the camera (Lens) icon on the right side of the search bar.
3. 03Allow access to your photos, then pick the image or screenshot you want to search. You can also point the camera at something in front of you.
4. 04Drag the corners of the selection box to focus on one object, then scroll the results for visual matches, shopping links, and pages that contain the image.

Lens is excellent for real-world objects, products, plants, landmarks, and text. It is weaker at finding the original artist of a drawing or the exact episode of an anime, which is where specialised engines do better.

With Chrome for iPhone

If you browse with Chrome instead of Safari, reverse search is built into the image menu. Long-press any image on a web page and choose the option to search the image with Google. Chrome opens Google Lens results in a new tab. This only works for images on web pages; for photos in your library, use the Google app or the Share Sheet instead.

With Safari and the engines' websites

Safari has no reverse image search option of its own, but every major engine has a website with an upload button, and iOS lets websites read a photo from your library.

1. 01Save the image to Photos (long-press → Save to Photos) or take a screenshot of it.
2. 02In Safari, open saucenao.com, tineye.com, or yandex.com/images.
3. 03Tap the upload or camera button. iOS shows a menu: choose Photo Library and select your image.
4. 04Wait for the upload, then read the results. Repeat on another engine if nothing matches.

This method needs no extra app, but you repeat the whole upload for each engine you try. Comparing four engines this way is slow, which is the main reason to use an app that switches between them on the same image.

What Visual Look Up does (and doesn't)

In the Photos app, recent iPhones can recognise what's in a picture: when the info button shows a small sparkle, tap it and iOS identifies plants, animals, landmarks, and well-known artwork. That's useful, but it isn't a reverse image search. It tells you what something is, not where the image came from, who made it, or where else it has been posted. To trace a source, you still need one of the engines above.

Which engine for which image

No single engine finds everything. Each has its own index and its own idea of what "similar" means, so the right choice depends on what you're searching.

A good default order: start with Google Lens for photos and products, SauceNAO for anything drawn or animated, TinEye when you want the oldest or highest-resolution copy, and Yandex when the others come back empty.

Tips for better matches

• Crop first. Remove status bars, captions, chat bubbles, and app buttons. Engines match the whole image, so extra interface around it pulls results off course.
• Use the cleanest copy. A saved original beats a screenshot of a screenshot. Compression and downscaling remove the detail engines rely on.
• Search one subject at a time. If a photo shows several things, crop to the one you want identified and search again for the next.
• Try more than one engine. A miss on Google Lens is often a hit on SauceNAO or Yandex, and the reverse. Switching engines on the same image is the quickest fix.
• Check dates on TinEye. Sorting matches by oldest is the simplest way to see where an image was posted first.