How to Use Bing Visual Search for Reverse Image Search

To use Bing Visual Search, open Bing Images and click the camera icon in the search box. Drag an image in, paste an image or its URL, browse for a file or take a photo with your webcam. Bing then returns similar images, pages and products related to the picture. On a phone, the Bing app and the Edge app offer the same search through a camera icon.

This guide covers every way to start a reverse image search with Bing on desktop and mobile, how to search only one object inside a picture, how Bing compares with Google Lens and TinEye, and what happens to the images you upload.

What Bing Visual Search does

Bing Visual Search is Microsoft's search-by-image feature: instead of typing a query, you give Bing a picture and it looks for information about what the picture shows. Microsoft lists these main jobs for it:

• Find similar images: related visuals, patterns or designs that match the picture.
• Shop for what you see: photograph furniture, fashion or decor and find where to buy it.
• Identify objects: plants, animals, landmarks and everyday things.
• Translate and copy text: point the camera at text to copy it, translate it or look up what it means.
• Get homework help: photograph a math or science problem to see the steps.

That makes it broader than a classic reverse image search, which only looks for copies of a picture. Bing mixes copy-finding with object recognition and shopping results, so a photo of a lamp returns lamps that look like it, not only pages that host that exact photo. Microsoft also notes on its support page that the AI behind the feature can make mistakes, so treat identifications of plants, mushrooms or products as a starting point and confirm them elsewhere.

How to do a reverse image search on Bing on desktop

A Bing reverse image search on a computer starts from the camera icon in the Bing search box. The steps:

1. Go to Bing Images, or open the Images tab on any Bing results page.
2. Click the camera icon (Visual Search) in the search box.
3. Pick one input: drag an image into the box, click Browse to upload a file, paste an image or an image URL, or choose Take photo to use your webcam.
4. Review the results: related images, pages and, for products, shopping matches.

Two shortcuts skip the upload step. In Microsoft Edge, right-click any image on a web page and select the Visual Search icon; this works even if Bing is not your default search engine. In Windows 11, the Snipping Tool can capture a screen area and run an image lookup directly, and the Windows Photos app offers Visual Search from its three-dot menu. Chrome and Firefox users can install Microsoft's official Bing Visual Search extension from the Chrome Web Store or Firefox Add-ons.

Search with your phone camera

Bing Visual Search on a phone works through the camera or your photo gallery. You can take a new photo, choose an image saved on the device or upload a saved file. Three entry points exist:

• Bing app (Android and iOS): tap the Visual Search icon, then take a photo or pick one from the gallery.
• Edge app: tap the address bar, then the camera icon above the keyboard.
• Edge app on a web page: long-press an image and choose Search Bing for this image.

The mobile route is the most useful one for the jobs where Bing goes beyond copy-finding: pointing the camera at a sign in another language to translate it, at a product in a shop to compare prices online, or at a landmark to identify it. For copy-finding (where else a picture appears), the desktop upload is usually faster because the image file is already on your computer.

Search only part of an image

Searching part of an image narrows Bing's results to one object, such as a chandelier in a photo of a room, instead of the whole scene. Microsoft introduced this in 2017 as a selection frame you draw or resize over the image; Bing updates the results as you move it. The two screenshots in this guide show that frame and its results.

The most reliable ways to search one object today:

1. In Microsoft Edge on desktop, start Visual Search and frame the area of the web page you want to search.
2. On the Bing results page, adjust the selection frame around the uploaded image if Bing shows one.
3. If neither option is available, crop the image first (Snipping Tool, Photos or any editor) and upload only the cropped part.

Cropping before you upload also helps with busy photos: the less background Bing has to interpret, the more accurate the object matches.

Bing Visual Search vs Google Lens vs TinEye

Bing Visual Search, Google Lens and TinEye all search by image, but they answer different questions. Bing and Google Lens identify what is in a picture and find similar items; TinEye focuses on finding where a specific image already appears online.

A practical rule: use Bing or Google Lens when you want to know what something is or where to buy it, and TinEye when you want to know where a photo came from or who else published it. For important checks, such as a suspicious profile picture or a viral photo, run the image through two engines, because each one indexes a different part of the web. On Google, the equivalent entry point is the Search by image icon on google.com, or right-clicking an image in Chrome and choosing Search with Google Lens.

Privacy: what happens to uploaded images

Images you submit to Bing Visual Search may be used to improve Bing's image processing services, according to Microsoft's Bing Visual Search help page. Microsoft does not promise there that uploads are deleted after the search, so do not upload photos you would not want to leave your device: ID documents, screenshots with personal data, private photos of other people.

The other tools state different policies. TinEye says it never saves uploaded images: it creates a fingerprint, compares it with its index and removes the file. For Google Lens in Chrome, Google says page screenshots are kept only temporarily to process the query, while the selected content becomes part of your Google Search activity. If you use Google Lens while signed in, see how to delete your Google search history or set up automatic deletion of Web and App Activity.

For sensitive images, TinEye is the most privacy-friendly choice of the three, and cropping a picture to the object you care about reduces what you share with any engine.

FAQ

Related: Snipping Tool screenshot features in Windows 11, how to delete all Google history, Google auto-delete for activity