Flickr launched it’s redesign earlier this month and it broke something I use a lot, the ability to reverse search images via Google. Usually I could just right click and “Search Google for this image”, but no longer is that available. There’s a work around, but its not as quick as it used to be. This method can be used for hotlinking, but bear in mind that’s against Flickr’s T&C.
Open the image you wish to view and open the download photo option. Next click and drag the box with the image size you want and drop it on the tab bar, in my case I clicked and dragged the original box. Next you will need to cancel the download.
After you’ve cancelled the download look at the URL in the address bar. Take a look at the URL of my image below:
https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8057/8157532508_802e299631_o_d.jpg
Notice the _o_d at the end? The _o is for Original and the _d is for the download. If you remove the _d and press enter you’ll see your image allowing you to hotlink, or simply search Google for this image.
Searching for your images via Google will allow you to find any stolen images, e.g. people passing it off as their own, or cropped out watermarks.
I hope you found this helpful.
Extended
Given this method takes too much time if you’d like to search multiple images at one, there’s a relatively fast way of do that. The idea is to create a html file with all the images in and bringing back the right click functionality. But first you’ll need to download all of the image files from your Flickr, the best way I’ve found is by using Bulkr. Once you have all of the files, download Bulk Rename Utility and navigate to your image folder (most likely Local Disk>Users>USERNAME>Desktop>Bulkr). Using Bulk Rename Utility we have to edit the Remove and Numbering settings, use the settings below to list images in number order.
Next click in the upper part of the window and press Ctrl+Alt to select all images and click the Rename button in the bottom right. Now that you have all images renamed in number order you can save this file as a html document and place it in the image folder. To save the txt file just press Ctrl+S and make sure it looks like the following:
File name: Image.html
Save as type: All Files
Once that’s saved into your Bulkr/image folder go ahead and open the Image.html file and then you will see your images. Feel free to add or takeaway any numbers, right now its up 360 images, but you can easily add more by copy and pasting some of the existing code.
<img src="X.jpg">
This method is probably the most convenient way right now to have the ability to right click and search Google for multiple images quickly.
