9GAG built its audience on images before video took over, and image posts remain a large part of it. The site's role has always been curation rather than creation — material is gathered from Reddit, Twitter, Instagram and everywhere else, sorted, and presented in one scrollable place.
That model works because finding the good material is genuinely laborious and most people will not do it. It is also why the site has been permanently unpopular with the communities it draws from, whose members watch their posts appear elsewhere with the credit removed.
The technical consequence is visible in every image. A picture that has passed through four platforms has been re-encoded four times, and JPEG compression is cumulative and irreversible. The characteristic mushy look of an aggregated meme is the accumulated damage of that journey.
Why people save 9GAG images
Forwarding, mostly. A file goes into a chat and displays for everybody, where a link to an advertising-heavy site is a worse thing to send somebody.
The feed also cannot be searched backwards in any practical way, so an image worth keeping is worth keeping at the moment you see it.
And posts get removed. Aggregated content attracts rights complaints, and material that arrived through four platforms is not a stable thing to rely on finding again.
Saving an image from 9GAG
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1
Copy the post address
Use the share control on the post and copy its link, or lift the 9gag.com address out of the browser bar. Both forms carry the same short identifier.
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2
Place the post link above
Paste it into the field at the top of this page.
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3
Take the image
The sizes stored are listed with their dimensions. Take the largest, though on an aggregated image the difference is often small.
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4
Send it on
Tap the row when it turns blue. Downloads on Android, the Files app on an iPhone.
Why aggregated images look bad
Each time a JPEG is saved again it loses information permanently, and an image on an aggregator has usually been through that several times.
Compression damage accumulates
JPEG works by discarding detail the eye is unlikely to miss. Doing that once is fine. Doing it five times, as an image is screenshotted, re-uploaded, re-encoded and re-shared across platforms, produces the blocky haze around text and edges that everyone recognises without being able to name.
Screenshots make it considerably worse. Photographing a screen or capturing a phone display adds a whole generation of loss before the image is even uploaded, and a great deal of aggregated content has been through exactly that.
None of this can be undone. If a picture matters, finding the original posting is genuinely worthwhile — it is usually sharper, and the comments on the aggregated version frequently point at where it came from.
9GAG image questions
Why do 9GAG images look blurry?
Because they have been re-encoded several times on their way through different platforms. JPEG loss is cumulative and cannot be reversed.
Will there be a watermark?
Frequently. The site applies its own branding to much of what it hosts, and it is part of the picture rather than an overlay that can be removed.
Can I find the original?
Often, with a reverse image search or by reading the comments, where somebody has usually posted the source. It is generally sharper.
Do short 9gag.com links work?
Yes, they are what the share control produces.
Can I save a whole section?
No. Each post needs its own address.
Where does the image save?
Downloads on Android, the Files app on an iPhone.
Will anyone be notified?
No. Nothing is reported and no account is used here.
Is there a limit?
No cap and no queue.
A 9GAG link has stopped working.
Posts are removed over rights complaints fairly regularly, which is an occupational hazard for a site built on aggregation.
Is saving from 9GAG acceptable?
Sending something to a friend is ordinary. Almost nothing on 9GAG was made by 9GAG, so the person who actually made it is several steps back and got no credit — worth remembering before presenting it as a find of your own.