LeakVoid

Guide

How to find copies of your photos and videos online

By the LeakVoid team Published Last reviewed

Use free tools. Run each image, or a clear still frame from a video, through more than one reverse image tool, such as Google Lens, TinEye and Bing Visual Search, then look up your stage name in quotes and set up Google Alerts. Save each page address with a dated screenshot, never in a public archive.

You can't ask a site to take down a copy you haven't found. The good news is that the main search tools are free, and a careful hour with them turns up a lot. This guide covers three ways to search, what each one can't see, and how to save evidence without making things worse.

Search by image

Reverse image search starts from a picture instead of words. You give the tool one of your images and it looks for pages showing the same image. For video, search a clear still frame, since these tools work on images.

Google Lens. On a computer, go to google.com, click Search by image, and upload a file, drag the image into the search box, or paste an image link. Google says results can include "Websites with the image or a similar image." In Chrome you can also right-click an image on a page and choose Search with Google Lens. If you search by pasting a link, Google notes that it "may store the URLs you search."

TinEye. TinEye is a separate reverse image search engine. You can upload an image, paste one, search by URL, or drag and drop. It "finds exact and altered copies of the images that you search for, including those that have been cropped, color adjusted, resized, heavily edited or slightly rotated." TinEye says it "never add[s] your uploaded images to our index" and keeps them only briefly to show results. It is free for non-commercial use.

Bing Visual Search. Microsoft's free version lets you drag and drop an image, paste an image or URL, or take a photo.

Run the same image through more than one tool. Each one searches its own index, and the results won't match.

What image search can't find

  • Pages it hasn't reached yet. TinEye puts it plainly: if it missed your image, "it is simply because we have not yet crawled the website or page where it appears."
  • Most social media. TinEye says "We do not typically add social media images (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter etc.) to our index."
  • Different shots of the same person. TinEye says it "cannot recognize the contents of any image" and "cannot find different images featuring the same people or objects." It matches copies of a specific image, not faces.
  • Anything a search engine isn't allowed to see. If a page isn't in a tool's index, no search will bring it up.

TinEye and Google describe themselves differently. TinEye says Google's index "is larger than ours," and claims its own matches are better at finding edited images. Use both.

Search your name and stage name

Copies are often posted with your name in the title or caption. Google's own search operators make name searches sharper:

  • Put your stage name in quotes for an exact match, for example "your stage name".
  • Add site: in front of a domain to search one site, with no space after the colon.
  • Put - in front of a word to leave it out, which helps when your name is also a common word.
  • Use after: with a date to see only results updated after that day.

Then let Google keep watching. Google Alerts sends "emails when new results for a topic show up in Google Search," and Google gives "mentions of your name" as an example. Set one up for each name you work under, and choose how often you get them.

If you worry that your home address, phone number or email is being posted alongside your work, Google's Results about you feature checks search results for that kind of contact information and can notify you about new matches. Google says some of its features are "currently rolling out for users who are over the age of 18 in certain markets."

Save evidence the right way

A takedown notice needs the address of each page with the copy. Record it as you go.

  • Get the real page address. Click through to the page and copy the address from your browser's address bar. A Share link from Google Images is not the page itself. Google notes that image share links start with https://share.google/.
  • Take a screenshot of each page with the address bar and the date showing, and write down when you found it.
  • Note when TinEye first saw it. TinEye says it "doesn't delete old results, and we show you when the results were found." That can help show how long a copy has been up.
  • Don't save leaks to a public archive. The Internet Archive's Wayback Machine says saved pages "will continue to exist even after the original page changes or is removed from the web," and its Save Page Now feature gives you "a permanent URL for your page." That is useful for many things, but for a leak it creates another public copy of your work. Keep screenshots and links in your own private files instead.
  • Don't download or repost the leaked files to prove a point. A screenshot and the link are usually enough to identify the copy. Some platforms also ask for proof that the work is yours, so keep a link to your original post or your own copy of the original file where you can find it.

Keep your log private and share it only with the site, the host, a search engine's form, or your lawyer.

What nobody can promise

No tool finds every copy. LeakVoid does not search for copies; it works from the links you send it. Pages behind logins, in private groups or outside a tool's index usually don't show up in search tools. Finding a copy is also only the first step. Nobody can promise every link comes down, because sites, hosts and search engines decide for themselves.

Do it yourself for free

Everything on this page can be done at no cost. TinEye says it "is free for non-commercial use." Microsoft calls Bing Visual Search a "Free Visual Search Tool," and none of the Google Lens, Google Alerts or Results about you pages we read mention a fee. Once you have your list, our guide on how to send a DMCA takedown notice shows what to send, and removing copies from Google Search covers delisting. For the whole process in order, read what to do when your content is leaked.

Where LeakVoid fits

Writing and sending a notice for every copy you find is the hard part. LeakVoid is being built for that part. You send it links to copies of your work and it drafts the notices. You review the new ones and sign the ones you want sent. LeakVoid sends them for you and shows whether each link is still up. If someone sends a counter-notice, LeakVoid pauses that item and forwards it to you. No notice goes out without your signature. LeakVoid doesn't give legal advice or promise removal.

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Sources

All checked Sat 2026-10-24.

  1. 1. Google Search Help, "Search with an image on Google": https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/1325808
  2. 2. TinEye Help, "What is TinEye?": https://help.tineye.com/article/231-what-is-tineye
  3. 3. TinEye Help, "How does TinEye work?": https://help.tineye.com/article/233-how-does-tineye-work
  4. 4. TinEye Help, "How do I search on TinEye?": https://help.tineye.com/article/242-how-do-i-search-on-tineye
  5. 5. TinEye Help, "Can TinEye find similar images? Does TinEye do facial recognition?": https://help.tineye.com/article/235-can-tineye-find-similar-images-does-tineye-do-facial-recognition
  6. 6. TinEye Help, "Why can't TinEye find my image? I know it is on the web.": https://help.tineye.com/article/237-why-can-t-tineye-find-my-image-i-know-it-is-on-the-web
  7. 7. TinEye Help, "About the TinEye index": https://help.tineye.com/article/177-about-the-tineye-index
  8. 8. TinEye Help, "Differences between TinEye and Google Search By Image": https://help.tineye.com/article/178-differences-between-tineye-and-google-search-by-image
  9. 9. TinEye Help, "Is TinEye free to use?": https://help.tineye.com/article/239-is-tineye-free-to-use
  10. 10. Microsoft Bing, "Visual Search": https://www.bing.com/visualsearch
  11. 11. Google Search Help, "Refine Google searches": https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/2466433
  12. 12. Google Search Help, "Create an alert": https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/4815696
  13. 13. Google Search Help, "Find and remove personal info in Google Search results": https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/12719076
  14. 14. Google Search Help, "Find the URL of a page or image": https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/118238
  15. 15. Internet Archive Help Center, "Save Pages in the Wayback Machine": https://help.archive.org/help/save-pages-in-the-wayback-machine/
  16. 16. 17 U.S.C. 512(c)(3)(A)(iii), United States Code, 2024 Edition: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCODE-2024-title17/html/USCODE-2024-title17-chap5-sec512.htm

How this page is made

This guide's facts were checked against the sources listed above as of the "Last reviewed" date at the top of the page, and those sources may have changed since. This is a check against sources, not a legal review. It has no person byline. Our editorial policy explains how guides are made, sourced, checked and corrected. If you find a mistake, write to hello@leakvoid.com.

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