By default, when you do a search in Google Images, it will retrieve and display all the images relating to your search term. If you want to filter the result, you have to click the “Cog” icon and go to “Advanced Search” before you can configure the settings for the returned images. If you are like me, who need to find “free to use” and “large” images most of the time, here is a simple trick to customize the Google Images search result, so it always return what you want to find.
- Go to Google Advanced Images search and configure the settings you want for your images, but leave the search term (the whole section under “Find images with…”) blank . For this example, I have selected “Larger than 800×600” for Image size and “free to use or share” for usage rights.
Click “Advanced Search”. It will bring you to the Google Image search page.
- All you have to do is to bookmark this page. Next time you load this URL and do an image search, the results will automatically be filtered with the search criteria you defined.
Alternatively, you can create a custom search engine in Chrome.
In Google Chrome, go to “Settings” and click “Manage Search Engines”.
In the “Other search engines” section, add a new search engine. Add the URL you bookmarked earlier, and don’t forget to add “%s” behind the “&as_q=” parameter.
That’s it. You can now search directly from the omnibar with the “images” keyword.
Damien Oh started writing tech articles since 2007 and has over 10 years of experience in the tech industry. He is proficient in Windows, Linux, Mac, Android and iOS, and worked as a part time WordPress Developer. He is currently the owner and Editor-in-Chief of Make Tech Easier.
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