Free Image Search - Royalty-Free Photos You Can Legally Reuse

Search 100+ million freely licensed images on Wikimedia Commons and get back only pictures you are allowed to use - in blog posts, product pages, ads, apps, slide decks and AI pipelines - each with its license, author and a ready-to-paste attribution line, plus direct links to the full-size original and a thumbnail.

Filter by license (public domain / CC0 only, or no share-alike), minimum size, orientation and file type. $1 per 1,000 images.

Why not just scrape Google Images?

Google Images scrapers return pictures that belong to someone else: using them on your site or in an ad is copyright infringement unless you find and clear every license yourself - and scraping Google breaks its terms. Every file on Wikimedia Commons is published under a free license that allows commercial use (public domain, CC0, CC BY, CC BY-SA...), checked by the Commons community, and this Actor reads it through the official MediaWiki API. You get the license with every image, so compliance is a copy-paste.

What you can use it for

• Content and SEO teams - a legal featured image for every article; the attribution field is the credit line to paste under it.
• E-commerce and marketing - landmarks, food, animals, nature and city shots at print resolution (filter minWidth: 3000).
• Apps, games and slide decks - maps, flags, diagrams and icons as SVG (fileTypes: ["svg"]).
• AI and ML - build image datasets with clear license metadata, or give an AI agent a "find me a picture I may use" tool via the Apify MCP server.
• Education and publishing - historical photos, artworks and maps, most of them public domain.

Input

Field	What it does	Default
queries	One search per line	golden retriever puppy, coffee cup, tokyo skyline night
maxResultsPerQuery	Images per search, after filters	20
license	any (all free licenses), commercialNoShareAlike (PD, CC0, CC BY - use anywhere with credit), noAttribution (PD and CC0 only - no credit needed)	any
minWidth / minHeight	Minimum pixel size	0
orientation	any, landscape, portrait, square	any
fileTypes	jpg, png, webp, gif, svg, tiff	jpg, png, webp
thumbnailWidth	Width of the preview link (the original is always included)	800
excludeRestricted	Skip files flagged with trademark, personality-rights or insignia restrictions (recommended for ads)	false
language	Preferred language of titles and descriptions	en

{
    "queries": ["electric car charging", "sushi platter", "hiking boots"],
    "license": "commercialNoShareAlike",
    "minWidth": 1600,
    "orientation": "landscape",
    "maxResultsPerQuery": 25,
    "excludeRestricted": true
}

Output

Real results from cloud runs on 2026-09-23. Default input (first 3 of 20 per search):

Search	#	Title	Size	License	Author
golden retriever puppy	1	Callie the golden retriever puppy	2048x1536	CC BY 3.0	MichaelMcPhee
golden retriever puppy	2	Golden Retriever Puppy 2012 01	1280x960	CC BY-SA 4.0	Johannnes89
coffee cup	1	A small cup of coffee	1600x1200	CC BY-SA 2.0	Julius Schorzman
coffee cup	3	Gray espresso cup with amaretto	4417x4160	CC BY-SA 4.0	Friedrich Haag
tokyo skyline night	1	Tokyo Tower, Minato City	5991x3370	CC BY 4.0	David Kernan
tokyo skyline night	2	Minato City, Tokyo, Japan (Night)	4622x2600	CC BY 4.0	David Kernan

With the filtered input above (no share-alike, at least 1600 px wide, landscape): 97 images, all CC0, public domain or CC BY - for example Close-up of an electric car charging (5887x3917, CC BY 2.0, Ivan Radic) and Honda electric car charging on private parking lot in Tokyo (4080x3072, CC0). One full item:

{
    "query": "sushi platter",
    "rank": 1,
    "title": "Sushi Plate in Organic Sushi Prague 4",
    "fileName": "Sushi Plate in Organic Sushi Prague 4.jpg",
    "imageUrl": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/48/Sushi_Plate_in_Organic_Sushi_Prague_4.jpg",
    "thumbnailUrl": "https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/48/Sushi_Plate_in_Organic_Sushi_Prague_4.jpg/960px-Sushi_Plate_in_Organic_Sushi_Prague_4.jpg",
    "pageUrl": "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sushi_Plate_in_Organic_Sushi_Prague_4.jpg",
    "width": 4608,
    "height": 3456,
    "orientation": "landscape",
    "megapixels": 15.93,
    "fileSizeBytes": 4479848,
    "mimeType": "image/jpeg",
    "license": "CC0",
    "licenseUrl": "http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/deed.en",
    "licenseFamily": "public-domain",
    "attributionRequired": false,
    "shareAlike": false,
    "commercialUseAllowed": true,
    "author": "Mojmir Churavy",
    "credit": "Own work",
    "attribution": "\"Sushi Plate in Organic Sushi Prague 4\" by Mojmir Churavy, CC0 (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/deed.en), via Wikimedia Commons",
    "attributionHtml": "<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sushi_Plate_in_Organic_Sushi_Prague_4.jpg\">Sushi Plate in Organic Sushi Prague 4</a> by Mojmir Churavy, <a href=\"http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/deed.en\">CC0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons",
    "description": "Sushi plate in Organic Sushi restaurant Prague 4",
    "dateCreated": "2023-11-16 20:17:33",
    "uploaded": "2023-12-18T10:22:43Z",
    "categories": ["CC-Zero", "Self-published work", "Sushi platters"],
    "assessments": [],
    "restrictions": [],
    "source": "Wikimedia Commons"
}

Field	Meaning
licenseFamily	public-domain (PD, CC0), attribution (CC BY), share-alike (CC BY-SA, GFDL...), other-free
attributionRequired / shareAlike	What the license asks of you: credit the author / publish adaptations under the same license
attribution / attributionHtml	Credit line in the usual "Title by Author, License, via Wikimedia Commons" form
assessments	Community quality marks: featured, quality, potd (picture of the day)...
restrictions	Non-copyright restrictions such as trademarked or personality rights

Pricing

Pay per event: $0.001 per image returned (plus a $0.00005 start fee).

Images	You pay
20 (one search, default)	$0.02
1,000	$1.00
10,000	$10.00

Filters are applied before you are charged - you pay only for images that match. A search with no match returns one free row with an explanation. Set "Maximum cost per run" and the run stops cleanly when it is reached.

FAQ

Can I really use these commercially? Wikimedia Commons accepts only free licenses that allow commercial use. Follow the license: credit the author when attributionRequired is true, and share adaptations alike when shareAlike is true (or pick license: noAttribution / commercialNoShareAlike). People, logos and buildings can carry extra rights - use excludeRestricted and check restrictions for ads. This is not legal advice.

What does it find well? Concrete subjects: animals, plants, food, places, landmarks, cities, buildings, vehicles, objects, historical events, maps, artworks and scientific images. Abstract "stock photo" ideas (for example remote work, success) return fewer good matches than on commercial stock sites - search for the concrete scene instead (laptop on desk).

Can I download the files? The imageUrl links point to the original files and can be downloaded directly. To get a ZIP, resize or convert, pass them to Bulk Image Downloader; to enlarge small ones, use AI Image Upscaler.

Is the ranking the same as on Commons? Yes - Commons' own search relevance, with your filters applied on top.

Data source

Media and metadata: Wikimedia Commons, read through the official MediaWiki API. Each file's license is set by its author and shown in the results. This Actor is not affiliated with the Wikimedia Foundation.

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