Google Images is the best image search engine for finding images on the web. It’s easy to use and serves results for your image search queries across numerous categories.

reverse image search on iphone and android

Not just that, Google Images is also the go-to image search engine for reverse image searches. And as such, you can use it to query an image on the web to identify its original source, find out when it first appeared online, find similar photos, or even get its higher-resolution versions.

However, as easy as it is to do a reverse image lookup on a computer, it can be confusing on mobile devices. To this end, here’s a guide detailing the steps to perform a reverse image search on iPhone and Android.

How to Reverse Image Search on Phones

Performing a reverse image search on the phone, be it an Android or iPhone, is possible in a few different ways. So depending on your search requirements, you can either use Google Images’ reverse image search functionality or a third-party reverse image search tool.

Method 1: Reverse Image Search Using Google Images

As we mentioned initially, Google offers reverse image search functionality as part of Google Images. Coming from Google means you have a higher chance of getting more accurate results for your query on it than some of the other search engines. Plus, it involves a much simpler process to do a reverse image search in Google Images than using a third-party reverse image search utility.

1. Performing a Google Reverse Image Search on iPhone

If you’re an iPhone user, you can use both Safari and Google Chrome to perform a reverse image search. However, it’s best to use Chrome since it’s considerably more reliable than Safari for this purpose. As you will soon figure out in this guide, Google image search upload is one of the easiest ways to do a reverse image search on any phone.

Reverse Google Image Search Using Chrome or Safari

Carrying out a reverse image search on Google Images involves the same set of steps on both Chrome and Safari. However, to use Chrome, you first need to download it on your iPhone via App Store.

Once done, you follow the steps below to do a Google reverse image search on Safari and Chrome:

  1. Open Chrome or Safari.
  2. Click the plus (+) button at the bottom to open a new tab.
  3. Tap the address bar and lookup images.google.com to open Google Images.
  4. i. On Chrome: Click on the share button icon in the address bar and select Request Desktop Site from the share menu.
    reverse image search using iphone

    ii. On Safari: Click the AA icon in the address bar and select Request Desktop Website.

    reverse image search using iphone

  5. Once Google Images loads the desktop site, tap the camera icon in the search box.
    reverse image search using iphone
  6. Depending on whether you want to search an image using its URL or via the image itself, tap on either Paste image URL or Upload an image option.
  7. i. With Paste image URL: Enter the URL of the image for which you want to perform a reverse image search in the search box and click the Search by image button.
    reverse image search using iphone

    iii. With Upload an image: click the Choose File button and select Photo Library to upload an image from Photos, Take Photo or Video to capture an image and look it up, or Browse to upload an image from Files. Once selected, hit Choose to upload the image and perform a reverse search on it.

    reverse image search using iphone

Related Read: Instagram Image Search [Guide]

2. How to Reverse Image Search on Android

Much like iPhone, you can do a reverse search of an image on Android using any browser app. But to ensure a hassle-free experience, we recommend you to use Chrome or any other Chromium-based browser.

How to do a Google Image Search Using Chrome

Performing a Google Reverse Image search involves the same steps on all Chromium-based browsers. Most Android smartphones these days ship with the Google Chrome browser. However, if it isn’t pre-installed on your Android device, you can download it from the Play Store and then use the following steps to perform a reverse image search:

  1. Open Chrome or any other Chromium-based browser on your Android phone.
  2. Click the three-dot menu on the top-right and select New tab to open a new browser tab.
  3. Tap the address bar/search bar and enter images.google.com to open Google Image search.
  4. Click the three-dot menu again and select the Desktop site option from the menu.
    reverse image search using android
  5. Once the Google Images desktop site opens, tap the camera icon in the search bar.
    reverse image search using android
  6. Based on whether you want to perform a reverse image search via an image’s URL or the image itself, choose either Paste image URL or Upload an image.
  7. i. With Paste image URL: Enter the URL of the image you want to look up in the input field and hit the Search by image button.
    reverse image search using android
    ii. With Upload an image: Hit the Choose File button and select Camera to capture an image and look it up or Files (or any other file manager option depending on your maker) to find lookup an image from the photo gallery. With the latter, once the file manager opens, select the image to upload it to Google Images for a reverse image search.
    reverse image search using android

Related Read: Facebook Image Search [Guide]

Method 2: Reverse Image Search Using Third-Party Apps/Engines

Just like Google Images, there are also a few other image search engines on the web that you can use to do a reverse image search on your smartphone. Although Google Images is easy to use and offers relevant results most of the time, these other search engines bring forth some additional features and come in handy when Google Images fails to pull up satisfactory results.

Similar to Google’s Google Images, you can access third-party reverse image search engines via any mobile browser on your iPhone or Android and choose the on-screen options appropriately to carry out a reverse search on your pictures.

Moreover, a lot of these engines also offer a standalone app to simplify the process. So you can download them from your device’s respective app store and use them for reverse image searches as well.

Below are some of the best third-party image search engines and apps you can use on Android and iPhone.

Related: How to Google a Video – Reverse Video Search

Best Third-Party Reverse Image Search Engines

Best Third-Party Reverse Image Search Apps

Simplifying Reverse Image Search on Mobile Phones

Reverse image search is a powerful search engine application that not only allows you to look up those images on the internet you’re unaware of but also the morphed and fake images that spread online misinformation in the form of false news.

And since a lot of us spend most of our time on smartphones, knowing how to do a reverse image search on our phones effectively can be very useful.

FAQs About Reverse Image Search on Mobile

Googling a picture wrt to reverse image search implies looking up an image on the internet to look up relevant information about it. On iPhone, you can carry out a reverse image search on any image using either the Google Images reverse search or any other third-party reverse image search app (CamFind, Veracity, or Google Lens) or engine (TinEye or Yandex).

Yes, similar to how you google text to find out all its relevant information, you can also google an image/search the internet using a picture. The process, however, is called reverse image search, and the way you perform it depends entirely on your mobile phone.

To Google Image search a photo from your phone, all you need to do is open a browser, preferably Google Chrome, on your Android or iPhone and go to Google Images. Here, since you're on the mobile version of the website, you don't get the option to search by image. And so, you must first request its desktop version and then either upload the image in question or enter its URL in the input field to perform a reverse Google image search on it.

Yes, of course. Doing a reverse image search of a screenshot on a phone is pretty much like how it is on a desktop. If you are on Android or iPhone, just open your favorite mobile browser, visit images.google.com and click on the camera icon.

Then, choose the screenshot you just took and upload it. And wait for Google to do its magic and return the results. You can also use third-party ever image search engines like TinEye and Yandex for this.

Before you start with doing a reverse search of an image, make sure you have the image saved on your iPhone or iPad. Also, ensure you have the Google app installed. Once done, follow the steps below:

  1. Open the Google app on your iPhone and iPad.
  2. Tap Google Lens on the search bar at the top.
  3. Take or upload a photo to use for your search.
  4. Select how you want to search. You can either use an object within the image or use part of an image.
  5. At the bottom, scroll to find your search results.
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