How to use PimEyes - a brief guide

PimEyes is a face recognition search engine that is available to everyone. It uses different modern technologies, like facial recognition, artificial intelligence, and reverse image search to help you find your photos on the Internet. We have provided a lot of useful tools and features that can help you improve your searches, but also get the most out of your subscription. In this article, we explain these features and how to use them.

Table of contents

1. When you perform a search using PimEyes
2. Main functionalities available for subscribers
3. Accessing the website that a photo appears on
4. Opening the source image
5. Information about a result
6. Adding results to PROtect Image to exclude them from being displayed in the publicly available searches
7. Alerts
8. PROtect Image
9. Takedown Requests
10. Search filters
11. Deep Search
12. Exporting results to PDF or CSV

When you perform a search using PimEyes

The first action you take after entering our website is to upload a photo and perform a search. We work hard on providing you with the best results containing your face.

The search process takes a while. At this time we check various kinds of websites: blogs, news, forums, pages containing explicit content, company websites, criminal records and estimate how many of them potentially publish photos of you.

If you want to access your results, become a subscriber. You can choose a monthly or annual subscription.

Main functionalities available for subscribers

As a subscriber you can benefit from the possibility to perform instant searches that return results within less than 5 seconds (usually 2-3 seconds). We sort the results by their resemblance to the searched photo. The ones that most resemble it should be displayed at the top, but sometimes you can find yourself in the middle of the list or even at the end of it. You can help yourself narrow down the results by using filters. We don’t limit the number of links you can open.

Accessing the website that a photo appears on

As a subscriber (of the Open Plus, PROtect, or Advanced plan) you can access all the sources of search results (websites and images). Opening the link is possible by clicking on the main picture or the "Open website" button.

Opening the source image

By clicking the photo icon, you can get the link to the source image and display the original, unblurred photo. How can you use this information?

Generally, a website is built in a way that all the uploaded attachments, including images, have their own addresses on a server. These addresses are different from the page addresses in that they end with a file extension (.jpg or .png for photos, .pdf or .doc for documents, etc.). The address to an individual image is not always easy to find because it is important for the website administrators, and usually not so much for users.

In our case, however, information about those links is crucial. You may ask why. So, imagine that you want to remove a photo from a particular website because it is being used illegally and it violates your image rights. Sometimes this photo is uploaded to a page on which it is difficult or even impossible to find (e.g. it is a cover photo for a post on a category page and during the time you search for it, it has already been superseded by the newer posts). It hasn’t been used anywhere else on the website, it is theoretically impossible to find, but it is still hosted by this website and you can’t be sure they won’t use it again.

This is where the link to the source image comes to the rescue. Once you have it, you can check if the given picture is still under that link. If it is, the website administrator hasn’t removed your photo. If it’s not, you don’t have to worry anymore.

Information about a result

There are 2 important pieces of information about a given result:

1. The date when our bots came across this photo

Important: It is impossible for us to provide the date of when the picture was uploaded to the Internet.

2. Result ID

When you click on the button with the copy icon on it, you automatically copy the ID of a specific result. This ID can be used to report a result in our removal form.

3. Share the result

We have added the “Share” button to simplify sharing the results. Use it when you want to show your results to your friends or a broader audience.

Adding results to PROtect Image in order to exclude them from being displayed in the publicly available searches (only for PROtect subscribers)

This feature is available only for the PROtect subscribers. When you click the button with the crossed-out eye icon on it, you will add a particular result to the list of results visible only to you. It won’t be displayed in our public searches anymore. Later you can also order sending the DMCA&GDPR Takedown Notices for the photo from this result via the Takedown Requests service.

Features available for subscribers

As a subscriber, you can open the links to all the search results.

PimEyes’ Alerts

PimEyes’ Alerts is our monitoring tool. It is available in all the plans. When you set an Alert, you are notified about newly-found results containing your face. You can set up multiple Alerts (3 in the Open Plus plan, 15 in the PROtect plan, and 500 in the Advanced plan). On our blog you can read more about using Alerts to protect your image.

PimEyes’ PROtect Image

PROtect Image is a service available only to PROtect subscribers. PROtect Image is a photo/are photos that we use to create your model picture in order to find results containing your face and exclude them from being displayed in the publicly available searches. You can set only one PROtect Image for your account. It works similarly to the AIerts, but the results of searching by PROtect Image are available only to you (in the user’s panel and email notification that we send you). Additionally, right after you order the PROtect plan we use PROtect Image to exclude the results that have already been displayed in our search engine.

PimEyes’ Takedown Requests

The Takedown Requests service is part of the PROtect plan. Thanks to this tool you can order DMCA&GDPR Takedown Notices for the results found and hidden by the PROtect Image.

In the Takedown Requests service we find the administrators of the websites where the unwanted images appear, draft and send multiple DMCA&GDPR Takedown Notices on your behalf, monitor if the photos have been removed, and report the results of our interventions. Every month you have at your disposal 4 hours of our professional services. On average, during this time, we send about 80 Takedown Notices.

Important: In the Takedown Requests service we can send the DMCA&GDPR Takedown Notices only for photos that we have found. It is impossible to send notices to websites that did not appear in our search results.

Search filters

Search filters are available in the Advanced plan.

You can find filters after clicking the button with a chain wheel icon on it. There are 5 main filters:

1. Time: filter by when the result appeared in our search results
2. Size: filter the results by image size
3. Language: filter by the language of the source website
4. Safe Search: hide the results recognized as “Adult content"
5. Domain filter: filter the results from only one domain or exclude results from particular domains

Deep Search

Deep Search is a feature available only for the Advanced subscribers. This mechanism is used to search our index more thoroughly. The Deep Search takes a little bit longer than a regular search. It is possible that by performing a Deep Search we will find more results with a given face, but not always.

Exporting results to PDF or CSV

The feature of generating PDF or CSV files from the results is available only in the Advanced plan. Use the black "Download" button to order exporting the results. You will receive them in the email sent to the main address of your account. This feature is very useful when you manage your results and you want to compare them quickly.