The Download
- You can search for Facebook images using Google search by typing site:facebook.com with your picture.
- Google Lens helps find where a Facebook image might have been posted online.
This article explains how to use a photo to run a Facebook image search to locate profiles and posts.
How to Do a Facebook Image Search
Facebook currently doesn’t allow you to search using an image, and the Photos search filter is no longer available. However, you can still search for images on Facebook by using Google Lens combined with a Google Search technique.
Running an image search on Facebook lets you see who originally shared the image or who has posted a similar-looking picture. This could potentially let you find someone on Facebook using their photo.
Here’s how it works on a computer, phone, or tablet:
Open Google and select the Search by image icon to the far right of the search bar. This opens a Google Lens window.
If you’re using the desktop website, select upload a file and then choose the image you want to use for the search on Facebook. Alternatively, if the photo exists online with a URL, enter it in the Paste image link box.
If you’re on a mobile device, tap the image preview button at the bottom left and then select the photo from your device.
If the photo is already available online in your web browser, you can also run a reverse image search on Google by right-clicking the picture in Chrome and selecting Search with Google Lens.
Google performs an initial search for the image, but it includes results from all websites, and we need to run a Facebook image search specifically.
To achieve this, use an advanced Google Search command. Select Add to your search at the top of the desktop site, or tap Ask about this image at the bottom of the mobile website.
Type this and then press Enter to search for the photo on Facebook:
site:facebook.com
Select the Facebook link that looks most like the image you’re using to search. This will take you to Facebook where you can gather some more context about the photo, such as who posted it.
Alternate Ways to Reverse Image Search
If the above approach doesn’t help, there are other tools besides Google Lens that specialize in reverse image searching on Facebook and other sites. For example, you can upload the image to TinEye or ImgOps to find out where else it appears online.
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