Help / FAQ / Photos
How do I upload my photos?
We provide a range of uploading tools for both Windows and Mac that will help you get your photos on Flickr.
You can also email your photos to your Flickr account. You have your own unique email address that you can use to add your photos to your Flickr photostream or to upload photos to your Flickr photostream AND automatically post them to your blog. Configure your email upload settings here.
If you'd rather not install our tools, you can use a web form to upload on the upload page. To use this form, look in the navigation menu at the top of the page under "You."
Is there a limit on the number of photos I can have?
No, there's no limit to the number of photos you can have. But if you have a free account, you'll only see the most recent 200 photos displayed.
With a free account, you can upload up to 300MB per month. You can see how much you've uploaded on the upload page.
If you upgrade to a Pro account, all the photos you add to Flickr will always be available to your friends and family.
Are there limits on file sizes or file types for uploads?
With a free account, you can upload photos up to 15MB in size, or 2 videos per month- up to 150MB for each video. If you have a Pro account, you can upload photos up to 20MB and videos up to 500MB in size. For more on video files and types supported, please visit the Video FAQ
Flickr officially supports JPEGs, non-animated GIFs, and PNGs. You can also upload TIFFs and some other file types, but they will automatically be converted to and stored in JPEG format.
As you publish photos, they're compressed and resized by Flickr (if necessary) in the following sizes:
- 75x75 pixels
- 100 pixels (on the longest side)
- 240 pixels
- 500 pixels
- Large (which will be 1024 pixels if it exceeds that length)
- The original size (if you have a pro account)
To access all of these sizes for a photo, click the "All Sizes" link on the individual photo page.
If you have a pro account, we also store your high-resolution originals, which you can download at anytime as long as you remain Pro. Anyone can access public photos and download the high-resolution (original) size from a Pro account, unless you limit access to the downloadable image.
Can I access my original images?
We resize your photos to more web-friendly dimensions. Each image has a 75x75 pixel thumbnail and 100-, 240-, 500-, 640- and 1024-pixel versions (that's the length of the longest side), as well as your original file.
When you view an individual photo page, click the "Action" button and then "View all sizes".
If you have a free account, no one (including you) can access your original file. If you upgrade to a pro account, your original files are available for download. You can use the global setting in your account to specify who can download original files: Only you; your friends and/or family; your contacts; any Flickr user; or anyone.
In case you have attached a
Where is the HTML code and photo file link?
The HTML code to embed a photo in a web page that you used to find on the All Sizes page is now only in the Share menu above the photo, to the right of the Actions menu. We now also include BBCode! (standard message board code)
There are a few cases where the code may not be available: 1) If the photo is restricted. 2) If that person has turned off "Share this" or access to original files.
The direct link to a photo file is no longer shown on the page. Per the Flickr Community Guidelines "pages on other websites that display content hosted on flickr.com must provide a link from each photo or video back to its page on Flickr." Linking directly to the photo file doesn't do this.
Can anybody comment on my photos and videos?
Most of the time, yes, unless you say you don't want them to. We recommend that you allow any Flickr member to comment, but it's up to you.
In your account area, you can specify default settings for comments.
When you're looking at a single photo or video, you can also click "show more" next to Owner Settings. You can then edit who can view, comment, and more.
Use the Organizr to change permissions on one or more items by dragging them from Findr into your workspace, and clicking the "Permissions" button on the toolbar.
If someone leaves a comment that you don't like, you can delete it. You can also block a person from commenting on your account.
How can I tell when people leave comments?
When someone leaves a comment, you can see it on your homepage under 'Recent Activity' from there you can or click through to your Activity page. You can also get to this page using the "You" menu at the top of the page.
If you aren't seeing comments on your photos, make sure that you have a view saved that shows activity on your photos.
What does the "Flag this photo" link on a photo page do?
There are loads of photos on Flickr, so you may come across photos that you don't like or that offend you in some way. Click the "Flag this photo" link to mark photos that you think require review by Flickr staff. If enough members agree with you by clicking the link, the photo will be hidden from the main public pages, such as Explore, Everyone's Photos, pages like photos tagged with pink, and search results pages like this.
How do I set privacy levels on my photos?
Easy! You can specify the privacy level as you upload photos using the form or Uploadr or by email). You can choose: Public, Visible to friends, Visible to family, or Private.
You can also set a default privacy level for all your uploads.
To change the privacy levels on photos you've already uploaded, you have two options: Change the privacy level in the Owner settings section under the Privacy heading on the right of the photo page, or batch them in Organizr, then click "Permissions" and select "Who can see, comment, tag?"
As of April 20, 2007, changing the privacy level of any photo ("public" --> "friends", or "friends" --> "family") will change the image file name. This ensures that any photo truly becomes private.
Please note that this will "break" any photo that has been blogged elsewhere as the image file will have a new URL.
Privacy Uploading by Email
With our upload system, you can add a little bit of text (the pink bits below) to your Flickr email address (the green bits below) to set privacy levels as you upload. These permissions will override the default upload permissions you set here.
Let's say your magic email address is foo13bar@photos.flickr.com. Then you could use:
foo13bar+friends@photos.flickr.com - Visible to friends
foo13bar+family@photos.flickr.com - Visible to family
foo13bar+ff@photos.flickr.com - Visible to friends and family
foo13bar+private@photos.flickr.com - Only visible to you
foo13bar+public@photos.flickr.com - Visible to everyone
Tip: Save the addresses you use frequently to your address book so you can email on the fly.
What's this Photostream thingy?
Your photostream is a visual history of everything you've ever uploaded to Flickr. Everyone who sees your photostream enjoys a different view, depending on their relationship to you and your privacy settings. For example, your family may see images in your photostream that only they can view.
If you have a free account, your photostream will only display the last 200 photos you uploaded. If you have a Pro account, everything is displayed.
How do I make an album of my favorite photos?
It's really easy to collect your favorite shots together using Organizr. You can make a set of photos and display them in a certain order. You can also choose one photo in the set to use as the primary photo (this will be displayed anywhere on Flickr that there's a link to your set). Each set can have a name and description too.
How can I change the look of my photostream?
We've introduced a layout preference for your photostream. You can choose what you want to appear in the right column: sets, collections, or neither.
In addition, the layout setting lets you choose to display the standard small sized images, or, if you're feeling crazy, 5 medium sized images. To adjust your page layout preferences at any time, visit Your Account or give it a whirl right here.
At the moment, you will always see the most recently uploaded photo at the top of your page. If you want to change this photo, edit the date you posted it. (We know this is a bit sucky.)
Can I delete photos from my photostream?
Yes, you can. But be warned: This is permanent.
If you want to delete more than one photo at a time, gather them into a batch (photos tagged with "x," photos from a certain date, etc.) and perform a batch deletion.
Also, bear in mind that if you have blogged a public photo that is later deleted, that photo will appear as a broken link in your blog.
How do I remove a photo from a set without deleting it?
You can remove photos one-by-one on each individual photo page, by opening the actions menu and selecting “Add to / remove from set”. Or you can open up Organizr and find the set you want, then drag the photos you want to delete to the Findr bar below.
You can also use Organizr to delete a whole set. This doesn't delete the actual photos in the set.
How do I change the date taken of my photos?
That's easy! To change the date taken of your photos, go to the photopage of the photo who's date taken you want to change. Next, open the "Actions" menu to the top left of your photo and select "Edit title, tags, and dates". On that page you can change several settings of your photo including the "Date taken on":
If you are not sure of the exact date taken, you can even choose from a couple of options that help you assign an approximate date taken to your photo.
In case you have uploaded a whole batch of photos, we offer you a handy way to batch edit the dates using the Organizr. By default it opens the Batch Edit tab. Just drag the photos you want to edit from the strip at the bottom of the page to the grey area and choose one of the options from the "Edit dates" menu.
Can I rearrange the photos in my photostream?
Your photostream always shows your most recently uploaded photos first. If you want to change the order, you can edit the posting dates for photos.
On each photo page, you'll see the actions button that opens a menu including the link "Edit title, tags, and dates". Click the link to open a page where you can change the date the photo was posted.
How can I add tags when I upload via email or my phone?
Just type "tags:" in the subject line or body of the email followed by the list of tags you want added to the photo(s). (The rest of the subject line in is converted to the photo's title and the body of the email becomes the photo's description.)
Here's an example of adding tags in action.
| Subject: | Lucy, my new cat tags: cute "black cat" |
| Body: |
Lucy does the funniest dance moves! Isn't she cute? |
Or you could send them in the body:
| Subject: | Lucy, my new cat |
| Body: |
Lucy does the funniest dance moves! Isn't she cute? tags: cute "black cat" |
(If you include tags in the email body, they must be at the beginning of a new line.)
Note: Tags sent via email are used in addition to any default tags you set up.
How many photos can I upload by email?
There's no set limit, but this feature was designed to upload single images from camera phones. You can send multiple photos through your regular email client, but you may have problems uploading some of them.
You may encounter problems if you email large numbers of photos at one time or send very high-resolution or large-size images. You may also have problems due to weird message formatting caused by different mail programs or mail server/transit problems outside of our control.
Since these issues vary, we suggest emailing fewer images at a time. You may have to experiment to find out what works best for you.
If you upload photos but they don’t appear right away, give it some time. If your mail server doesn't connect with ours on the first attempt, it may take awhile before it tries again.
Can I put my Flickr photos on my web site?
Yes! You can create a dynamic badge of your publicly viewable Flickr photos to add to your web site (outside of Flickr).
Use the wizard to set up your badge and show: your photos, group photos, or photos from everyone. You can also filter images by a certain tag.
Simply choose the display options (which photos, how many, what size) and specify if you want to display your screen name and buddy icon. Then choose either a styled version of the badge (photos appear in a column with a colored background) or one that you can design yourself.
Note: If you choose to customize the badge yourself, you need to know we hold all the photos in an enclosing DIV with the class 'flickrimg.' The images within it are also assigned IDs: flickrimg1, flickrimg2, etc.
How do I view a slideshow?
We automatically create slideshows for you in most of the places you want them around Flickr. Keep your eyes peeled for slideshow links at the top of the page on photostreams, tag pages, set pages, group pools and search results. You can start a slideshow from the photo page in the "Actions" menu or just click the photo to see it in a light box view.
When you're in a slideshow, use the controls at the bottom to pause or play. Click the photo or video to see more info, or click Help to view all the controls. You can even change the speed or play it backwards using the Options menu!
And by all means, click the full screen icon on the bottom right, sit back, and enjoy the show.
Why is the slideshow blank!?
The slideshow uses Flash, so first you need to make sure you have Flash installed. Download the free Flash Player?
If you have Flash installed and slideshows still won’t play:
- Try reloading the page
You do this by holding down the shift button on your keyboard and hitting the reload button on your browser. - Try some different slideshows – some from your contacts and an Explore slideshow. If all of them are blank it is likely something with your browser/system. If some of them work but not yours it may be an issue with how your files were saved.
- Try a different browser. If the other browser works, check the security settings and extensions on your original browser to see if anything may be blocking Flickr.
- If you have any Firewall or Anti-Virus software running try turning that off. If it works with it off you may need to look through it’s settings to make sure it is allowing JavaScript and Flash for flickr.com
- You may need to reinstall Flash on your computer
Step 1 is to uninstall any previous version of Flash (uninstall directions). Then, you should download the most recent version of the Flash Player and install it (download).
If the problem still persists, try searching The Help Forum or Get Help.
How can I copyright my photos?
In most parts of the world, including the U.S., Canada, EU countries, and Japan, you are automatically granted copyrights to your photos.
Remember that you can only copyright images that you own. In some instances, you may not have the rights to all of the elements that you’ve photographed (for example, the work of another artist) and may not have the rights to reproduce that photo elsewhere.
The nonprofit Creative Commons offers six default licenses as an alternative to full copyright so you can choose the one that best suits your needs.
You can select a default license for your photos here.
To change the license for a specific picture, just open up "Owner settings" near the bottom of your photo page and edit the license.
How can I stop people from downloading my photos?
You can set a global preference that controls who can view the original version of your image. Just select a setting — from "Only Me" to "Anyone." This setting applies to all your photos and is combined with your privacy settings.
Say you publish a photo of ice cream. If you're sharing that photo with only friends, they are the only people who can see it. Even if you set it so "Anyone" can download the photo, your friends are still the only people who can see it and thus download it.
Also, if you applied a Creative Commons license to your photos, the originals can be downloaded by anyone. You can change your default license here.
I set the preference for no downloads. Why can people still download my photos?
If you applied a Creative Commons license to your images, then by default the original size of your image can be downloaded. If you don't want to make the originals available, don't apply a Creative Commons license to your images.
I set the preference for no comments. Why are people commenting?
If your photo is in a group pool, people can leave comments and add notes and tags to it, despite your setting.
I'd rather people didn't blog my photos. How can I prevent that?
Go to Your Account and disable sharing.
Disabling sharing makes it more difficult for people to blog your photos, but remember that anyone can copy and blog a public photo. If you'd rather this didn't happen, change your settings to make your photos private.
How do I download a photo?
Select the photo and open the actions menu, then click the '"View all Sizes" link inside the menu. On the next page, choose the size you want to download and click the link in the "Download" section.
Bear in mind, you may not have permission to download the original file so you will not see "View all Sizes" in the actions menu or the "Download" section on the "All sizes" page of every photo. Please read "I'd like to use a photo I found on Flickr. How do I do that?"
On your own photos, you will always see the "All Sizes" button and the original is available with a pro subscription. There is no batch download option but you can have a CD made from QOOP.
Can I replace my photos and keep the comments and tags and stuff?
Yes! If you have a pro account, you can replace a single photo at a time from the "Actions" menu on the photo page. The title, description, comments, notes, tags, groups and favorites associated with the original photo will be kept.
As of April 20, 2007, replacing an image will change the image file name. Please note that this will "break" any photo that has been blogged elsewhere as the image file will have a new URL.
How do I rotate a photo?
To rotate a photo, select "Rotate" from the actions menu above the photo. A dialog will pop up and you'll be able to select the correct orientation.
Please note that rotating a photo will change the image file name. If you've blogged the photo before rotating it, the image may not display.
Can Flickr rotate my photos automatically?
Yes, but only in some cases.
A lot of digital cameras store information about the orientation of the camera when the photo was taken. If your camera uses EXIF, this information is stored as "EXIF orientation" in the EXIF data, which is uploaded to Flickr with your photo. We can use this data to rotate your photos as they're uploaded.
If you want us to rotate your photos, set your preference here.
Note: We won't rotate the original photo file. To preserve photo quality, we never modify the original.
I've uploaded a big image file, but it turned out black. What do I do?
This problem occasionally occurs on very large images. In general, you may see this for images that are approximately 500MB or more in total size when decompressed. (This may vary depending on the image and/or the software you use.) This happens on these large files because the Flickr image tools must be able to both read the image and allocate resources for scaling and enhancing it. Try scaling your image a bit from it's original size — often that works. (If you have a Pro account, you can replace the black image using the Replace Photo function.)
How do I get the URL of a photo?
To use the URL of a photo (like when you add a photo to your Blogger profile), you must provide the web address (URL) of the image itself, not the address of the web page where the image is displayed.
Here's an example of a correct URL for a photo. Note the .jpg at the end:
» http://www.flickr.com/photos/132375_0ca82ae31e.jpg
Here's an example of an incorrect URL for a photo. It points to the web page where the image is displayed, not the image file itself. Notice there's no .jpg at the end.
» http://www.flickr.com/photos/eric/132375/
(Click both of these links to see the difference.)
You can get the URL of your own images on Flickr. To do this just click "Actions" and "View all sizes." You can then right-click to get the URL of the photo.
Note: Per our Terms of Use, whenever you place an image you're storing on Flickr on an external web site, you must also include a link back to Flickr.
Why do my image colors look different on Flickr than on my computer?
If you uploaded an image to Flickr and the colors look different than they did on your computer, it usually has to do with how the image was saved.
What exactly is happening?
All digital image files have something called a "color space" associated with them—a set of instructions telling programs how to display the colors in that image (how red should the red be, what blue is the blue, and so on).
If your images are saved with a color space that your web browser can't understand, then the photo will display with the "wrong" colors. (Safari being the exception, as it can handle any color space an image has.)
How can I fix it?
To make sure that your image's colors look the same on the internet as they do on your computer, you will need to save them using the sRGB color space. If you're not sure how to do that, try looking in your image editor's Help menu for instructions.
Where can I see other people's photos?
All over the place!
Like on:
- The Explore page
- The latest photos uploaded into Flickr
- Your friends' photos
- The FlickrBlog, and
- Each of your contacts probably has his/her own photostream.
What is Exif data?
Exif data is a record of the settings a camera used to take a photo or video. This information is embedded into the files the camera saves, and we read and display it on Flickr. Exif can be a useful learning tool, especially when you compare two similar photos to see what you did wrong, or what you did right.
You can always see the Exif on your own photos. You can also make it available for others to see and help them learn too.
Why don't I see a 'large' size?
There are a couple reasons why you might not see a large size image.
1) The original is 640 pixels or less - If the original uploaded image is 640 pixels on the longest side, we don't show a 'large' size since it would be the same as the 'medium 640' size.
2) The original was uploaded before May 2010 & is less than 1280 pixels - Prior to May 2010 a 'large' size wasn't always created. A large was only created if the original was 1280 pixels or more on the longest side. Also, if the original was less than 1280 we showed the 'original' labeled as the 'large'. So you may have seen a 'large' before, even though it was actually the original.
You can create ‘medium 640’ and ‘large’ sizes for older photos (as long as the originals are that size or larger) by clicking Actions > Rotate on the photo page. Rotate and save the photo one way, then rotate and save back. Please note that this will change the URL to the image files, so that if they are blogged or embedded in a website, it will break the image on that site.