Websites Like Google Lens: What Each One Is Actually Good At

Google Lens bundles several jobs into one button: identify this, find where it came from, shop for it, read the text in it. The websites people use instead mostly do one of those jobs each, and picking the wrong one is why “it didn’t find anything” is such a common complaint.

Google itself narrowed the options. Since August 2022, uploading an image on Google Images opens Lens rather than the classic reverse image search, and Android Police reported that getting the old results took an extra click on “Find image source.” So if you came here because Lens isn’t giving you what the old search did, you’re not imagining it.

Below are the websites like Google Lens worth knowing, sorted by job, with what each one’s own pages say about accounts, upload limits and your image. Everything was read on 16 September 2026.

Two jobs that get lumped together

Job one: “what is this, and where else does it appear?” That’s reverse image search. You want matches, similar images, products or the original source.

Job two: “get the words out of this picture.” That’s OCR. You want text you can paste, not search results.

A reverse image search engine is poor at the second job and an OCR site can’t do the first at all. Decide which one you’re doing before you upload anything.

If it’s job two and the picture is on your phone, you may not need to upload anything. Textora, the iPhone and iPad app I build, reads the text on the phone itself, so the image doesn’t go to a server for recognition. No website in this article can do that, because each one has to receive the image first. More on that further down.

This article doesn’t cover searching for people by their face. That’s a different question with different rules, and none of the tools below are recommended for it.

Sites like Google Lens for identifying and tracing images

Bing Visual Search

The closest thing to Lens on the open web. Microsoft’s help page says you can use it “to find similar images, products, pages that include an image, and even recipes.” You drag, upload or paste an image into the camera icon on Bing Images. The page describes no sign-in step and doesn’t state a file size limit.

On your image, the same help page carries a short note that is easy to miss:

The photos you provide may be used to improve Bing image processing services.

The Microsoft Privacy Statement (last updated September 2026) adds that “we collect the image you provide when you use a Bing image-enabled service.” It doesn’t give a retention period for uploaded images specifically.

Use it for: “what is this object, and where can I buy one.”

TinEye

TinEye does something narrower and does it well: it finds copies of the exact image you give it, including cropped, resized and edited versions. Its help centre is blunt about the limit: TinEye “cannot recognize the contents of any image.” Upload a photo of a chair and it won’t tell you it’s a chair. It will tell you which sites have published that exact photo.

The practical details are unusually well documented. The FAQ lists a 20 MB maximum file size and a 100-pixel minimum on either side, and says it accepts JPEG, PNG, GIF, BMP, TIFF and WebP. It’s free for non-commercial use, capped at 100 searches a day and 300 a week. The search instructions include no account step, and there’s no app; TinEye says its website works in a phone browser.

On retention, TinEye’s documents don’t quite agree with each other. A help article says it displays results and then “immediately delete[s] the image you uploaded.” The privacy policy, dated January 2025, is more specific:

We store your uploaded images on our internal servers for a maximum of 24 hours to efficiently handle any repeat searches for the same image. All images are deleted within 24 hours of when they were uploaded.

It also says that when you search by URL, “we may store the text of the URL for longer periods.” I’d plan around the policy’s 24 hours rather than the help article’s “immediately.” Either way, both say uploads are never added to the searchable index, which is still the clearest commitment of any site here.

Use it for: finding the original source of a photo, spotting where your own image has been reused, or getting a higher-resolution copy.

Yandex Images

Yandex’s image search help page lists finding copies in other sizes, similar images, and which sites carry the same image. Its mobile version can also recognise and translate text in a photo, so it covers a bit of both jobs. You upload through the camera icon, and the instructions include no sign-in step. No file size limit is stated.

The Yandex privacy policy (effective 26 August 2025) doesn’t mention uploaded images at all. It names YANDEX LLC, “a company incorporated under Russian law,” and says that where your local law requires consent for international transfers, “by using the Sites or Services you provide Yandex with your express and unambiguous consent to such transfer, storage, and/or processing of the information in other jurisdictions, including Russia.” Retention is “as long as it is necessary to fulfil the purpose for which it was collected.” Whether that matters depends on what’s in the picture.

Use it for: a second opinion when Bing and TinEye come up empty, or translating a sign from your phone’s browser.

Google Lens itself, for comparison

Lens is a website too, via Google Images and Chrome. Chrome’s help page says that when you use Lens on webpage content, “a screenshot of the page and page data will be sent to Google,” and that Google “doesn’t save any data beyond temporary storage for processing the specific query.” Separately, Google’s Visual Search History setting is off by default. If you turn it on, images you search with in eligible Google apps while signed in can be saved to your account and used to improve Google’s visual recognition technologies.

At a glance

Websites for reading text from an image

If job two is what you need, a Google Lens alternative online is a free OCR site. I compared four of them in detail in what free online OCR sites say in their privacy policies, so I won’t repeat that here. Three things have shifted on their homepages since August:

ocr.space now says on its main page that “all uploaded files and extracted text are automatically deleted immediately after OCR processing is complete,” that it needs “no registration,” and that the free tier caps files at 5 MB.

onlineocr.net now describes itself as “fully browser-based for maximum privacy” and says “No data is transmitted or stored.” Further down the same page it says your files “are protected by TLS encryption during upload” and that guest documents “will be deleted automatically after conversion.” A file that is uploaded and later deleted was transmitted. Guest uploads are capped at 15 MB and five files an hour.

img2txt.com’s homepage says uploaded files “are automatically deleted after a few hours.” Its privacy policy still says the file “is physically stored for up to one week” and the recognition result “for up to two years.” When a homepage and a policy disagree, the policy is the one you could hold them to.

For public text, such as a menu, a flyer or a page from a library book, any of these is fine and faster than installing anything.

What no website can change

Every one of these websites like Google Lens works the same way: your image leaves your device and lands on someone else’s server. The policies above differ in what happens next, but none of them can skip that step, because the processing happens there. My longer piece on private Google Lens alternatives goes further into why that matters for documents.

For anything with your name, an account number or someone else’s details on it, the better route is a tool that reads the image locally:

• On a computer, Windows and macOS already have built-in text recognition. I cover which does what in Google Lens alternatives for PC and Mac.
• On an iPhone or iPad, Textora recognises the text on the device and keeps it: every scan goes into a searchable library, multi-page documents export as searchable PDFs or Word files, and Knowledge Cards pull out names, dates and amounts. Live Text is also built in for copying text from the image in front of you, and Apple describes it as using “on-device intelligence.”

A quick check for any tool: turn on airplane mode. If it still reads the text, nothing was uploaded.

Which one to open

• “What is this thing?” Bing Visual Search.
• “Where did this photo come from?” TinEye first, then Yandex Images.
• “I just need the text from a public document on a computer.” A free OCR site, after reading its policy.
• “I need the text from something private, or from paper in front of me.” Not a website: scan it on the phone.

For that last job, Textora on the App Store recognises text on the iPhone or iPad, works without a connection, and needs no sign-up to start scanning. It doesn’t do reverse image search, and it’s an app rather than a website, for iPhone and iPad only. When you need the text on a computer, export a searchable PDF, Word file or plain text and open it there.

I build Textora. Facts about other products above are taken from their own pages, checked on 16 September 2026; email support@textora.app if something has changed.

Sources: Android Police — Google makes classic reverse image search harder to access (Aug 2022) · 9to5Google — Google Images now uses Google Lens (Aug 2022) · Google Search Help — Search with an image · Google Chrome Help — Search with Google Lens in Chrome · Google Search Help — Visual Search History · Microsoft Support — Using Bing Visual Search · Microsoft Privacy Statement · TinEye FAQ · TinEye privacy policy · TinEye — Does TinEye keep images I upload? · TinEye — How do I search on TinEye? · TinEye — Can TinEye find similar images? · TinEye — Is TinEye free to use? · TinEye — Search limits · Apple Newsroom — iOS 15 is available today (Live Text) · Yandex Images Help — Image search · Yandex Images Help — Translate text in images · Yandex privacy policy · ocr.space · onlineocr.net · img2txt.com · img2txt.com privacy policy