How to Find Your Photos on PimEyes and Remove Them

Short answer: Upload a clear frontal photo to pimeyes.com, review the results grid, then pay for a subscription to see the source URLs and send takedown requests. Removal is never one click — PimEyes does not delete images from other sites; it gives you the links and a template letter.

Searching is free. Seeing where the matches live costs money. That gap annoys people, and it is worth understanding before you start.

What is PimEyes?

PimEyes is a facial recognition search engine. You upload a face, and it returns public web pages containing visually similar faces, ranked by similarity. It was built for people checking where their photos appear — journalists, stalking victims, and also, plainly, anyone else.

A 2026 subscription runs about $19.99 per month or roughly $79 for a year, with a three-month option in between. Prices move; check the checkout page rather than trusting older reviews.

How does the free search work?

1. Go to the PimEyes homepage and upload a photo. Face should be frontal, at least 200×200 pixels, and reasonably lit.
2. Solve the captcha and run the search. It takes 5–20 seconds.
3. You get a grid of blurred thumbnails with a similarity score per result. That is the free tier.
4. To see actual URLs, click a result and hit the paywall, or use the “remove from search” flow which stays free.

Two free searches per day is the rough limit for unregistered users. Registration raises it slightly.

How do you request removal?

PimEyes cannot delete anything on a third-party site. What it does give you:

• The source URL for each match, once subscribed.
• A ready-made removal request addressed to the site’s webmaster, with the relevant legal framing (GDPR right to erasure in the EU, CCPA in California).
• A privacy-protected results page — a link you can keep and share with a lawyer or a platform’s trust team.

The realistic workflow looks like this:

1. Export the match list.
2. Group by domain. Ten results from one image-hosting site is one email, not ten.
3. Send the takedown request to each domain’s abuse or privacy contact, not their general info address.
4. For results PimEyes itself surfaces, use their opt-out form — that removes your face from their index, not from the web.
5. Log dates and responses. Most sites reply within 14 days; a few never reply.

Is the removal request effective?

Mixed. Dedicated image hosts and social platforms usually act, especially with a GDPR complaint attached. Aggregator sites and scraper blogs often ignore requests entirely, and some repost. Your realistic goal is shrinking the surface, not zero mentions.

Where it works well: leaked photos on a single blog, an old employer page, a directory listing with your face and address. Where it does not: Telegram channels, private forums, and anything hosted outside the jurisdiction of the law you cite.

What about the privacy trade-off?

This is the part that deserves a blunt sentence. To find your images, you hand a facial-recognition company a clean biometric sample of your face. Several EU data protection authorities have scrutinized PimEyes over exactly that loop. If minimizing your biometric footprint is the goal, uploading a mugshot to a third party is a strange first step.

A defensible middle path: search once with a photo you have already published, decide based on results, then submit the opt-out so your face is not in their index long-term. Do not upload private photos you have never shared.

Also check whether the site’s search results are indexed — PimEyes results pages are private by default, but older cached versions exist.

Who is it for?

People dealing with a specific leak, and people in public roles checking their exposure periodically. It is also genuinely useful for freelancers who want to see which stock sites scraped their portfolio.

Not for anyone hoping for automatic deletion, and not for minors without an adult handling it — the legal routes differ.

Quick Summary

• Searching: free, roughly two searches per day.
• Seeing URLs: requires a paid plan, about $20/month.
• Removal: you send takedowns; PimEyes only supplies the links and templates.
• Best results: single-site leaks, directory listings, GDPR-backed requests.
• Main trade-off: you submit a biometric sample to a third party to do it.

Last updated October 2026.