You may want to reconnect with an old friend, but all you have is their picture.

Or you receive a picture from an online date and you’re curious about their real identity. It’s better to uncover the truth before you delve into an intimate relationship. Romance scams often take place through online dating websites. They create personal profiles using stolen photographs of attractive people for the purpose of attracting people.

In the other case, a user wants to know if they could take any measures and have peace of mind by searching for someone’s real identity with the picture, a first name, and a phone number, as they were freaked out by the person’s weird stalkerish behavior.¹

Whatever the reason might be, you can conduct a reverse image search on the person to find more details. Below we’ll show you the best tools to do this.

Google Reverse Image Search

Apart from the standard Google Search using multiple keywords, Google’s Reverse Image Search will provide its best guess for what the image name is, as well as provide links to pages that it’s used on. If there is no such exact image in the database, they might show you some visually similar images.

1. Go to the Google Image Search page.
2. Click on the camera icon.
   
   
3. Select upload a file.
   
   
   
   If you have the image found online, right-click the image and select Copy image address.
   
   
   
   Then paste the URL into the box and click Search.
   
   

Then Google will try to find related images, which will typically be similar images or a mix of similar images and exact copies. And they may have some kind of useful information attached to them.

If you’re not getting any results or receiving irrelevant ones, there are several reasons contributing to this.

Firstly, the lack of results may occur if the person you’re searching for has a limited online presence. Google relies on the availability of images on the internet, and if the individual has not shared their picture widely or is not active online, the search may not yield results.

Secondly, receiving irrelevant results could be due to the uniqueness or obscurity of the image. Google’s algorithms might struggle if the image is not distinct enough, leading to matches that may not be related to the person you’re looking for.

In such cases, try alternative search engines. You can give Bing Visual Search, TinEye Reverse Image Search, or Yandex Images.

However, you may not always find matches. One user on a forum was looking for ways to do a reverse image search to verify if the person she met on a dating site was too good to be true, and she took the tips shared by other users to try searching on TinEye and Google, where it found no matches.² If you’re running into a similar situation, you can proceed to the next method below.

Social Catfish Reverse Image Search

The most effective way to conduct a reverse image search is to take advantage of a reverse lookup search engine, like Social Catfish. What you need to do is upload a picture and wait for the service to search its database. It scans millions of social profiles including the biggest social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, and even sites like forums and other online networking sites. Additionally, you’ll receive an alert if the person is a scammer!

Here is how you can do a reverse image search on Social Catfish to find people and verify identities:

1. Navigate to the Reverse Image Search page.
2. Upload an image from your device and click Search.
   (Be sure to crop the image to remove any added details from screenshots. )
   
   
3. Wait for the tech to work its magic.
   
   
4. Click View Report on the top tab.
   
   
5. Here you’ll see a bunch of information on the person.
   
   

Social Catfish is a subscription-based service. But you can expect to get the most information you need on the person you’re looking for, which is kind of value-for-money. Additionally, you’ll enjoy a discount for 5 days. The cancellation is hassle-free. That means if you’re not satisfied with the service, you can cancel it at any time.

Some may be using the photo to find more information on a person, who had a common name.³ Social Catfish also comes in handy. Either by searching with a name or picture, users may expect to find more details on an individual.

1. r/NoStupidQuestions [LandscapeWitty6448]. (2023, June 20). How Do I Find Someone With Just A Picture? [Online forum post]. Reddit. https://www.reddit.com/r/NoStupidQuestions/comments/14dtunh/how_do_i_find_someone_with_just_a_picture/ ↩︎
2. r/OnlineDating [HvyMtl1sLfe]. Reverse Image Search? [Online forum post]. Reddit.
   https://www.reddit.com/r/OnlineDating/comments/nl1jlp/reverse_image_search/
   ↩︎
3. r/Ancestry [VintageZuchini]. Using a photo to find someone. [Online forum post]. Reddit.
   https://www.reddit.com/r/Ancestry/comments/18x67pa/using_a_photo_to_find_someone/ ↩︎