How to Search Your Mac by Image
Arun Gopidas
Google's reverse image search is useful when you want to find where an image appears online. But what about when you want to find where a file lives on your own Mac?
You have a JPG — a screenshot of a mockup, a product photo, an exported graphic — and you want to find the original, find similar images you've saved, or track down which folder it ended up in. Spotlight can't help. Finder has no concept of searching by visual content. And uploading your client files to Google is not an option.
Searching your Mac by image — your own files, locally, privately — is a different problem entirely. Here's how to do it.
What "Search by Image" Actually Means on a Local Level
When most people say "reverse image search," they mean Google's tool: upload a photo, find where it appears on the web.
Searching your Mac by image means something different: you have an image, and you want to find other files on your hard drive that are visually similar to it. This could mean:
Finding the original PSD or AI source behind a JPG export
Finding all similar-looking images saved across multiple folders and drives
Locating a screenshot you took of a design reference months ago
Surfacing other versions or crops of the same image
None of these use cases involve the internet. They're all about your local file library. And until recently, no Mac tool offered this at all.
How reverscan Searches Your Mac by Image
reverscan is a Mac file indexer that includes visual image search — locally, using Apple Vision, with no uploads.
Here's what happens when you drop an image into reverscan's search zone:
1. Feature extraction
reverscan passes the image to Apple Vision's VNGenerateImageFeaturePrintRequest. This generates a compact numerical representation of the image's visual content — colour distribution, composition, textures, shapes. This is called an embedding.
2. Similarity scoring
reverscan compares that embedding against the stored embeddings of every image in your index using cosine similarity. A score of 1.0 is a perfect match; 0.0 is completely unrelated. reverscan surfaces results with a similarity score of 0.50 or higher.
3. Ranked results
The top 15 matches are returned, ranked from most to least similar. Each shows a thumbnail, filename, and location. Results marked "high confidence" have a similarity score of 0.75 or above.
[SCREENSHOT: visual similarity results strip — a row of image thumbnails returned after dropping an image into the search zone]
No file is uploaded anywhere. Everything runs on your Mac using Apple's on-device Vision framework.
How to Search Your Mac by Image: Step by Step
Step 1 — Index your images
reverscan needs to have seen your images before it can search them. Open the app and click + Index Entire Computer (for your home folder) or + Index Drive / Folder for a specific location or external drive.
During indexing, reverscan automatically generates visual embeddings for every JPG and PNG it finds. You don't need to run a separate step — embeddings are created as part of the normal index pass.
Step 2 — Open the Search tab
Click the Search icon in the bottom navigation. You'll see a text input at the top and a drag-and-drop zone.
Step 3 — Drop your image
Drag any JPG or PNG from Finder into the drop zone. reverscan generates an embedding for the dropped image and immediately searches your index for visual matches.
Step 4 — Review the results
A thumbnail strip appears showing your most visually similar indexed images. Click any thumbnail to reveal the file in Finder.
[SCREENSHOT: reverscan drop zone with image being dragged onto it, then results row appearing below]
Try it free → Download reverscan and search your Mac by image in under two minutes.
What Makes a Good Visual Match
Apple Vision's feature extraction is trained on visual content — it understands images holistically, not just pixel-by-pixel. Two images don't need to be identical to match. reverscan surfaces results based on visual similarity, which means:
Crops of the same image will score very high
Different colour treatments of the same composition will score high
Images with similar layouts or subject matter will score medium
Visually unrelated images won't appear (filtered by the 0.50 threshold)
This makes it genuinely useful for finding versions, variants, and visual references — not just duplicates.
How This Differs from Reverse File Search
reverscan has two distinct search-by-file modes:
Mode | How it finds matches | Best for |
|---|---|---|
Visual search (drop an image) | Compares visual embeddings — finds files that look similar | Images, screenshots, exports, mockups |
Reverse file search (drop any file) | Extracts text content — finds files with matching content | PDFs, exports with text, documents |
If you drop a JPG into the drop zone, reverscan decides which mode to use based on the file. For pure image files, it defaults to visual similarity. If you've dropped a PDF, it extracts text.
If you need to find visually similar images, drop a JPG or PNG. If you need to find the working file behind a text-heavy export, drop the PDF.
Tips for Better Visual Search Results
Index more drives. The more files reverscan has seen, the more results it can surface. If you keep project archives on external drives, index those too — they stay searchable even when unplugged.
Higher resolution images produce better embeddings. A blurry or very small thumbnail will produce a weaker embedding than a full-resolution image. If you have both, drop the higher-resolution version.
Use it to audit your image library. Drop a client's brand image and immediately see every related file you've saved — across years of projects, across every drive you've indexed. It's a fast way to find where you've used or stored similar visuals.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does reverscan upload my images to search them?
No. Everything runs locally on your Mac using Apple Vision. No image leaves your machine.
Do I need to run Deep Scan before visual search works?
No. Visual embeddings are generated during normal indexing for JPG and PNG files. Deep Scan adds OCR text to images — it's useful for text search, but not required for visual similarity search.
Can I visually search design files like PSDs or Sketch files?
Not directly — the visual search works on JPG and PNG files. However, if you export a design file to PNG or JPG first, you can drop that export in to find visually similar indexed images. PSD and design files can be found via content search or reverse file search.
How many images can reverscan handle?
The visual index scales well — at 7,000 images, a search takes roughly 5ms. For most designers this is imperceptible.
What if I get no results?
Either no images in your index have a similarity score above 0.50 for the dropped image, or your images haven't been indexed yet. Check the Drives tab to make sure your image folders are indexed.
Does this work for images on an unplugged external drive?
Yes. If an image was indexed while the drive was connected, it stays in the visual index even after the drive is disconnected. Results from unplugged drives show with an "Unplugged" badge and a stored thumbnail preview.
Your entire image library — years of exports, screenshots, references, and project assets — is searchable by visual content the moment you index it. Download reverscan free and start searching your Mac by image today.