Imgur was built in 2009 to solve one problem: image hosts kept collapsing whenever a picture got popular on Reddit. A student wrote something that would not fall over, posted it as a gift to that community, and spent the first week watching it get hammered by exactly the traffic it had been built for.
For over a decade it was where the internet put its pictures. Forum posts, Reddit threads, Twitter links, chat messages and blog entries across the whole web pointed at Imgur, on the reasonable assumption that a free image host with no account requirement would simply keep working.
It has not entirely kept working. Imgur changed its terms in 2023 and cleared out a great deal of old anonymous content, which broke images across an enormous number of pages that had relied on it for years. Anyone with a link worth keeping learned the lesson the expensive way.
Saving an Imgur image
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1
Copy the image address
Take the imgur.com address from your browser. A direct i.imgur.com file address works too. For an album, open the individual image rather than the album page.
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2
Supply the Imgur link here
Paste it into the field at the top of this page, which begins reading it at once.
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3
Take the full size
The sizes Imgur holds are listed with their dimensions. The page you were looking at probably showed you a smaller one.
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4
Keep it while it exists
Tap the row when it turns blue. Downloads on Android, the Files app on an iPhone, the usual folder on a computer.
Why Imgur links are less permanent than they look
The 2023 clear-out is the clearest example. Old anonymous uploads were removed in bulk, and every forum thread, Reddit post and blog entry pointing at them broke at once. A decade of the internet's visual context disappeared in a policy change.
It was always a sharing host rather than an archive, and never promised otherwise. People uploaded to post somewhere else, and neither they nor Imgur treated those files as permanent records of anything.
Which means a link is not a copy. If an image matters — a diagram, a chart, a photograph, a screenshot of something since deleted — the file on your own device is the version that survives somebody else's housekeeping.
The size suffixes Imgur uses
Imgur names its resized copies with a single letter added to the file identifier, which is why the same image can appear at wildly different sizes.
| Suffix | Roughly | Where it shows up |
|---|---|---|
| s, b, t | 90 to 160 pixels | Thumbnails in a grid |
| m | 320 pixels | Small previews |
| l | 640 pixels | Embedded in pages |
| h | 1024 pixels | Larger views |
| No suffix | The full upload | What you actually want |
An address ending in something like abc123h.jpg is a resized copy; the same identifier with no letter is the full one. That is a useful thing to know even without a tool, because you can often simply remove the letter yourself.
Imgur image questions
Why is the image I saved smaller than expected?
Because the page loaded a resized copy. Imgur names those with a letter added to the identifier, and removing it often gets you the full version directly.
Can I save a whole album?
No. Each image needs its own address, so open the individual picture first.
Do direct i.imgur.com addresses work?
Yes, along with ordinary imgur.com post links.
Why do so many old Imgur links fail?
Imgur cleared out a great deal of old anonymous content in 2023, which broke images across an enormous number of pages elsewhere.
Can I save from a hidden or private post?
If the link opens without signing in, yes. Anything requiring an account does not.
What formats does it handle?
JPEG and PNG behave as expected. Animations are stored as video, which the Imgur video page here covers.
Will the uploader be notified on Imgur?
No. Imgur sends nothing of the kind.
Where does the image save on Imgur?
Downloads on Android, the Files app on an iPhone, the usual folder on a computer.
Is the file the true original?
It is the largest version Imgur stored, which for most uploads is what the poster provided. Very large images are resized on arrival.
Is saving from Imgur acceptable?
The site exists so people can share pictures, so keeping one shared with you is the intended use. A great deal of what is there was made by somebody else and posted without credit, which is worth remembering before you repost it.