The 6 Best Free Image Hosts: HotLinking Allowed, No Bandwidth Limits

Whether you’re looking for a way to keep your images online, need to send someone an awesome meme, or reduce your bandwidth overhead, free image hosting is super handy. There are loads of free image hosting sites out there.

Plus, modern free image hosting sites are different from the early options, offering slick, multiplatform services with numerous hosting options. And, with so many options, how do you choose a free image host?

Wonder no more: here are six of the best free image hosting sites.

1. Imgur

Imgur is one of the world’s largest free image hosting sites. Originally designed to host images for Reddit, Imgur continues to grow and attract new users. You can put its growth down to a few important features.

First up, you don’t need an account to host images. You drop an image into Imgur (or browse to the file location), wait for the upload to complete, and then you can begin sharing the link. Next, it hosts your images at very high quality, for free. You can also host GIFs on Imgur, as well as create albums and add individual captions to images.

The maximum file size is 20MB for images and 200MB for GIFs. You can upload JPG, JPEG, PNG, APNG, TIF, GIF, Animated GIF TIFF, BMP, PDF, and XCF files to Imgur.

There is also an Imgur app for Android and iOS, which works the same as the desktop site (free uploads, no account requirement, etc.).

2. imgbox

imgbox is a very basic but handy free image hosting service. You can use it to host JPG and PNG images, plus it can also host GIFs up to 10MB in size. imgbox offers unlimited storage space, for an unlimited time.

The imgbox interface is very simple. You drag and drop your image or browse to the file location. Once your image finishes uploading, you can start sharing your link. You can hotlink imgbox files, too.

imgbox doesn’t have loads of flashy features. But it is a great free image host.

3. Google Photos

Wait, Google Photos is a free image hosting platform?

Yes, it is—for photos and images you upload from your mobile or a point-and-shoot camera up to 16 megapixels. With that information, you can consider Google Photos one of the ultimate free image hosts for shots of stunning vistas, multicolor sunsets, and most importantly, cat selfies.

Google Photos is an in-depth platform, as you would expect from Google. It categorizes your photos automatically, allowing you to search your library using a wide range of terms. For instance, you could search for the location, or “girls,” or the date, or a feature, and so on.

Google Photos receives billions of new uploads every day, as Google is using the vast number of photos to assist with the development of artificial intelligence and other big data programs. Furthermore, allowing Google Photos to function as a free image host keeps users within the Google ecosystem, which is preferable.

4. Oshi

Oshi is slightly different from the other options on this list of free image hosts. The usual focus is on preservation and longevity, keeping your images alive and online for as long as possible. Ochi does it differently, offering you control over your images and sharing anonymity.

You don’t have to create an account with Oshi. Furthermore, you can set the links to your image to self-destruct after 1-hour, 1-day, 3-days, 7-days, 30-days, and 90-days. But if you change your mind after setting a destruction time, you can always alter it after sending the link. To further boost your privacy, you can randomize file names to make sure that there is no link between the URLs you share.

Another feature that will appeal to privacy and security-focused individual is support for Tor. Each image you host on Oshi also receives a Tor download address.

5. ImageShack

ImageShack moved to a premium account-model a long while ago. However, you can still pick up a free ImageShack account. The free ImageShack account has a 10GB per month upload limit, but that’s still a decent amount of free image hosting, especially with a reliable and long-standing service.

When you activate your free ImageShack account, it begins a 30-day trial of the premium tier automatically. You won’t lose any photos at the end of the period, and it gives you a decent slot of time to figure out if those extra features are worthwhile.

ImageShack has several handy options. You can adjust your image privacy settings, making sure only people with the link can see your photos. There is also the option to create extensive albums, complete with tags and other organizational tools. ImageShack has an Android and iOS app, too, so you can upload and share your images on the go.

6. Free Image Hosting

Free Image Hosting is one of the oldest free image hosting options still online, operating since 2003! It is another basic but extremely handy free host for your images. You can upload images up to 3MB to Free Image Hosting using the file types JPG, BMP, PNG, or GIF.

That’s it. Free Image Hosting works well and will keep your images online forever, or so long as the site remains up and running. Given its existing history, it will remain online for the foreseeable future.

Free Image Hosting for High-Resolution Photography

If you’re looking for something more professional, you can use photography hosting sites such as Unsplash or 500px to host high-resolution images for free. These high-res free image hosting sites offer your images for download with accreditation and often feature as some of the best free stock photography sites. In the case of 500px, there is a premium image tier that’ll help you earn cash from the photos you take.

However, 500px and Unsplash won’t accept just any picture you throw at them. Editors curate the content, so you won’t see random memes or grainy pictures.

What Is the Best Free Image Hosting Site?

With so many options, choosing the absolute best free image hosting site is difficult. If you use your smartphone to take photographs, Google Photos is an incredible option. It’s free, offers automatic uploading and curation, and you can access it anywhere.

Do you want to touch up your photos before uploading them? Check out the best free photo editing apps for iOS. Or, if you’re rocking an Android, the best free photo editing apps for Android.

Read the full article: The 6 Best Free Image Hosts: HotLinking Allowed, No Bandwidth Limits

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