How to find the full image from a cropped image

Where the full image is depends on where your cropped copy came from. If you cropped it yourself, the app usually kept the original, so Revert brings it back, even after saving. If someone sent it to you, the full photo is almost always on their device, not in your file, so check the file and then ask them. If the picture was posted online, a reverse image search with Google Lens, Bing Visual Search or TinEye can find larger, uncropped copies on other sites. If none of these works, the cut-off part cannot be recovered, and no app or AI tool can show what it held.

Quick answer: where to look for the full image

Where your cropped image came from	Where the full image may still be	What to do
You cropped it in Photos on iPhone, iPad or Mac	In Photos, which keeps the original	Revert to the original (iPhone and Mac guide)
You cropped it in Google Photos	In Google Photos, as the original or next to your copy	Tap Edit, then Revert (Android guide)
You cropped a screenshot	Usually in the app you cropped it with	Follow the screenshot guide
Someone sent it to you	On the sender’s device, rarely inside the file	Check the file, then ask for the original
It was posted online	In other copies on the web	Run a reverse image search
None of these	Nowhere	It cannot be recovered

I cropped a photo and it disappeared: how to restore it

If the part you cut off seems to be gone, it is usually still there. Most photo apps keep the original and store your crop as an edit, so you can undo it later:

1. iPhone or iPad. Open the photo in the Photos app, tap More, then tap Revert to Original. Apple says this undoes your edits after you save (Apple), so it removes any other changes too, not only the crop.
2. Mac. In Photos, select the photo and choose Image > Revert to Original. Apple says Photos keeps the original so you can always undo your changes (Apple).
3. Google Photos. Open the photo, tap Edit, then Revert. That works if you saved with Save. A picture saved with Save as copy cannot be reverted, but Google says that option leaves the original unchanged, so look for it in your library (Google).
4. Samsung Gallery, Windows Photos, Office, Canva and other apps. The steps for each are in can you uncrop a photo?, with more detail in the Android and Windows guides.

If the whole photo is missing, not just the cut-off part, check the trash. Photos on iPhone keeps deleted photos and videos in Recently Deleted for 30 days (Apple), and Google Photos keeps them in its trash for 30 days (Google).

Revert works only on the photo in your own library. A copy you already shared is the edited version: on iPhone, only AirDrop with All Photos Data turned on sends the original along with its edit history (Apple). So go back to the photo in your library, not to the copy in a chat or a download folder.

Find the full version of a cropped photo someone sent you

The file you received usually contains only the part the sender kept, so the full photo is on their device. Try these in order:

1. Save the image itself, not a screenshot of the chat, because a screenshot holds only what was on your screen.
2. Check the file for leftovers. Open it in our free cropped photo checker. It reads the file on your device, without uploading it, and looks for an embedded preview or leftover data from before the crop. Such leftovers are rare. The best-known case is screenshots cropped with Google Pixel Markup before its 2023 aCropalypse fix, or with a similar Windows Snipping Tool bug fixed the same year, which could leave part of the original inside a cropped file (David Buchanan, Android, Microsoft).
3. Ask for the original. The sender can usually revert the crop on their own device and send the full photo. From an iPhone, they can AirDrop it with All Photos Data turned on under Options, which shares the original file with its edit history (Apple).
4. Search online if the picture was ever posted publicly, as described below.

For what each app actually sends, read can someone uncrop a photo you sent?

How to find the uncropped version of an image online

A reverse image search looks for other copies of your picture on the web. If the photo was published somewhere in full, for example in a news article, on a stock photo site or in a public post, one of those copies may show the area your version is missing. TinEye says it finds copies that were cropped, edited or resized, and even images that only partly match your search image (TinEye).

Each of these services uploads your picture to its own servers, so read what they do with your image before you search with a private photo.

Google Lens on a computer

1. Go to google.com.
2. Click Search by image, then Upload a file.
3. Select the cropped image and click Open or Choose. You can also drag the image file into the search box.
4. Scroll through the results and open the websites that use the image.

In Chrome, you can also right-click a picture on any web page and click Search with Google Lens to see results in a sidebar (Google).

Google Lens on a phone

On Android (Google):

1. Open the Google app or the Chrome app.
2. In the search bar, tap Google Lens.
3. To use a picture saved on your phone, select it under Screenshots.
4. Scroll down to see the results.

If the picture is on a web page, open it in the Google app or Chrome, touch and hold it and tap Search image with Google Lens. In Chrome, this needs Google as your default search engine (Google).

On iPhone or iPad (Google):

1. Open the Google app, the Chrome app or Safari.
2. In the search bar, tap Google Lens.
3. Tap Photo picker and select the cropped photo.
4. Scroll down to see the results.

Bing Visual Search

1. Go to Bing Images, or select the Images tab at the top of any Bing results page.
2. Select the camera icon in the search box.
3. On a computer, drag the image into the box, browse and upload it, or paste the image or its URL. On a phone, choose an image saved on your device.
4. Look through the results, which include pages that use the image (Microsoft).

TinEye

1. Go to tineye.com. TinEye has no mobile app, but it says its website works on phones and tablets the same way (TinEye).
2. Use the upload button to choose the image, or drag it onto the page, paste it, or paste the image’s URL into the search box.
3. In the Sort by list above the results, choose Biggest Image to see the highest-resolution copies first (TinEye, TinEye).
4. Click a result’s thumbnail or Compare Match to switch between your image and the match, with the matching parts lined up (TinEye).

What Google, Bing and TinEye do with your image

All three receive the picture you search with. Google can save the images you search with to your Google Account if a visual search history setting is on, uses saved images to improve its visual search, and notes that these settings are being updated, so check your activity controls (Google). Microsoft says photos you provide may be used to improve Bing image processing services (Microsoft). TinEye says it never adds your image to its index and keeps it only briefly to show your results (TinEye).

If the picture shows a person, a document or anything else private, think twice before searching with it. Our cropped photo checker is different: it reads the file in your browser and sends it nowhere.

What the results mean

• A bigger copy of the same picture. A match that is wider or taller than your image may be the uncropped version. TinEye’s Biggest Image sort puts the highest-resolution matches first, and Compare Match shows what differs between the two (TinEye).
• The page where it was posted. Google lists websites with the image or a similar image, and Bing lists pages that use it (Google, Microsoft). Open them: the original post or article may show the full photo, and often who took it. TinEye’s Oldest sort shows the copies it found first, but that is the date TinEye crawled each copy, not the date it first appeared online (TinEye).
• A stock photo. TinEye can limit results to stock photo sites, where the original image is offered for license (TinEye).
• Similar images. Google also shows similar images (Google), which can be different photos of the same subject or place. TinEye says it does not typically find similar images and cannot find different images of the same people or objects, only copies of the same one (TinEye, TinEye). Check that the details match before you trust a result.

Finding a full copy does not mean you may reuse it. TinEye points out that most images online are protected by copyright (TinEye).

When the full image cannot be found

The cut-off part is gone for good when all of these are true:

• The app that made the crop did not keep the original, or the cropped copy is the only one left.
• Any deleted original was removed from the trash (after 30 days in Photos on iPhone and in Google Photos), and there is no backup.
• Nobody else, such as the person who took the photo, still has it.
• The full photo was never on the public web, or no search engine has found it. TinEye says no results means only that no match is in its index yet, and that if it misses an image, its crawlers have simply not reached that page (TinEye, TinEye).

In that case, no app or website can bring back what was cut off. Tools that “uncrop” a picture with AI, including our own AI image extender, generate new pixels that fit the edges. The result can look real, but it is invented, so it cannot show what was there. If you only need a wider picture, our free uncrop tool adds new canvas and fills it in your browser. For every way a crop can be undone, read can you uncrop a photo?