Protection
How to remove your photos from the internet
You cannot delete the internet, but you can make your pictures hard to find. That means an inventory, the right takedown route per host, de-indexing, and a routine that catches reappearances.
Key takeaways
- Removal starts with an inventory: you cannot take down what you have not found.
- The route depends on the host — impersonation reports for profiles, copyright notices for commercial reuse, abuse contacts for scrapers.
- Deleting a page is not enough; request de-indexing so it stops appearing in search results.
- Expect reappearances from mirrors and resellers, and re-check monthly rather than once.
"Take my photos off the internet" is a reasonable goal expressed in impossible terms. What is achievable is concrete: remove the copies that matter, break the search paths that lead to them, and shrink what is available to copy next time.
Step 1 — Build the inventory
Work from evidence, not memory. Run a face search on three to five reference photos to find where you appear, and a reverse image search on the specific files you want gone. Put every result in one list: URL, platform, which photo, and a screenshot with the address bar visible.
- Accounts and profiles using your pictures.
- Commercial pages selling or monetising them — shops, stock libraries, galleries.
- Forums, comment threads and archive pages.
- Automated scraper mirrors and bulk image sites.
- Your own old pages: forgotten albums, club listings, former employer bios.
Step 2 — Match the route to the host
| Where the photo is | Route | What to include |
|---|---|---|
| Fake social or dating profile | Impersonation report | Screenshots, your ID if requested, original file |
| Shop, stock or print-on-demand listing | Copyright notice to the platform | URL, proof of ownership, statement of no authorisation |
| Independent website | Host or abuse contact | URL, original file, request for removal |
| Scraper mirror | Abuse contact, then de-indexing | URL list; expect no reply from the site itself |
| Intimate images shared without consent | Platform priority channel and local reporting | Evidence, plus a support contact — do not do this alone |
Step 3 — De-index what is already dead
A removed page can keep appearing in search results for weeks. Once the URL returns an error, submit it for removal from search indexes, and separately request removal of cached and thumbnail copies. For pages that will not come down, most major search engines also accept requests to remove results that expose personal images or contact details.
Step 4 — Cut off the supply
- Set old public albums to private and review pictures other people tagged you in.
- Publish lower-resolution versions where you need a public photo at all.
- Retire the specific photos that keep resurfacing — a picture already in circulation stays valuable to copiers.
- Reduce the number of clean, front-facing portraits in public; those are the most useful to impersonators.
- Audit once a year: old profiles, dead projects and former workplaces are common sources.
Step 5 — Make it a routine
Copies come back. Resellers cycle through their sources, mirrors re-crawl, and impersonators rebuild profiles days after a takedown. Re-run the same searches monthly with the same reference photos and compare against last month's list. Because your baseline is known, reviewing what is new takes minutes.
The goal is not zero copies. It is that nobody looking for you casually can find them.
Check where your face appears
Upload one photo and FaceDetective scans public sources for matching profiles, image copies and web mentions. The scan and a preview of the matches are free.
Run a free face scanFrequently asked questions
Can photos really be removed from the internet permanently?
Individual copies can be removed, and search paths to them can be broken. A guarantee of permanent deletion everywhere is not possible, because copies can be re-uploaded. Realistically you aim to remove the copies that cause harm and to catch reappearances quickly.
How do I find every copy of my photo first?
Use both searches. A face search on several reference photos finds where you appear even after cropping and filtering; a reverse image search on the original files finds copies of those specific pictures. Record every URL with a screenshot before you report anything.
What if the website ignores my removal request?
Escalate to the hosting provider's abuse contact, then to the domain registrar, and separately request de-indexing so the page stops appearing in search results. For commercial reuse a formal copyright notice usually carries more weight than a personal request.
Do I own the copyright to photos of me?
Usually the photographer owns the copyright, which means a selfie is yours but a portrait taken by someone else may not be. You may still have image and privacy rights depending on where you live, and platform impersonation and privacy policies apply regardless of copyright.
About the author
FaceDetective Research Team
Image forensics & online privacy
We build and test face and reverse image search technology at FaceDetective. Everything we publish is based on scans we run ourselves, on public sources and on documented platform policies.