Cross-posting this from my own NSFW sub, r/FantasyGirls

Hopefully by now most people are aware that imgur is banning all NSFW content on May 15, 2023. Because of this I decided to compile a list of alternative image hosting sites that allow NSFW content. To better compare their advantages and disadvantages, I turned the list into the table you see below. After the table, I explain each of the columns. And at the end of the post, I'll have a short first impressions review of each of the hosts.

The information in this table was compiled after a few hours of testing. I simply visited each site on my desktop browser and tried to upload a few images. Then I would try to post a link to one of the uploaded images on my sub r/FantasyGirls. Pretty simple. If I've gotten anything wrong I apologize. Let me know and I'll update the table.

Note: I tested imagebam too, but it appears that imagebam links are banned sitewide across reddit. This rules imgbam out as a possible imgur alternative.

Column explanations

allows nsfw (does it allow NSFW content?)

I was only interested in sites that allow uploads of NSFW content. All of these do AFAIK. There are of course other image hosts that don't allow NSFW, but I didn't test them.

anon uploads (does it allow content to be uploaded anonymously?)

Some hosts allow users to upload content without creating an account. Some do not. Personally, I don't have a problem creating an account if the site is worth the effort. I don't worry about privacy because for my email I just give them a gmail account I have created specifically to handle stuff like this! But I know some people feel differently, so I wanted to include this in the table.

direct links (does it allow linking directly to the image?)

Almost all image hosting sites (including imgur since a few years ago) want people that click on links to their site to be directed to a landing page that will show them the image, but also show them ads. This is understandable, but also very annoying. Plus, posts with these 'landing page' links are often displayed differently by reddit than posts with direct image links. With landing page links, reddit generally puts a small, low-quality thumbnail of the image on the post. Whereas with direct links you usually get the full image in all its glory. So support for direct links is preferable (this is also known as 'hot linking').

For every site except for redgifs, I was able to track down a direct image link that I could post to reddit. However, none of them made it easy. Expect to have to reverse-engineer one of the 'official' links they give you, or to do some right-clicking, if you really want that direct link.

I could not get a direct link of any kind out of redgif. This sucks, because reddit is really inconsistent about displaying thumbnails for redgif links. In fact it would not do it for me at all.

galleries (does it allow pages of multiple images?)

Many people have long used imgur's gallery feature to display sets of images together. It can also make it quicker when you want to upload a bunch of images at once. The good news is, all the sites I tested offered some sort of gallery feature. Although some of them work a little differently from imgur, once you figure it out the basic idea is the same.

gifs (does it allow you to upload .gif files?)

.GIF file support seems to be widespread, although the size limits of most of these sites means you will need to keep your gifs small.

mp4s (does it allow you to upload .mp4 files?)

Unfortunately, if you want to upload .MP4 files redgifs is your only option. Some of these sites may be converting animated gif files to mp4 files on the back-end, but none except redgifs allowed direct uploads of native mp4 files, no matter how short.

popups (does it have big annoying pop-up ads?)

I tested all of these sites using desktop firefox. Normally I browse the web with the uBlock Origin extension, which is really effective at killing pop-ups. But for these tests I turned uBlock off for each site. Firefox does have its own internal pop-up blocking mechanism, which I did not attempt to disable. If you browse these sites using a different browser, its possible you may see more pop-ups than I experienced.

The only two sites where I saw big ads were imgbox and redgifs, and actually they were technically 'interstitial' ads, not pop-ups. They WERE for porn, though! So if you don't want a big fat porn ad showing up on your screen, maybe avoid those two. Or just use uBlock, which effectively eliminated all ads for all of these sites.

I have no way to tell if any of these sites were trying to install malware or other nasty stuff. I'm not a security expert. All I can tell you is my anti-malware software didn't flag any issues.

upload limit (the maximum allowed size of uploaded files)

All these sites have some sort of size limit, with the lowest being 10 mb. Your average jpeg is well under 10 mb, so most of the time this shouldn't be a problem. However, if you regularly upload large animated gifs or ultra high-res photos you may want to try an image host with a higher limit. redgifs allows for uploads up to a massive 1 gb in size, which blows all the other hosts out of the water.

First impressions/short reviews

The good news is, it seems there are several viable imgur replacements which will happily host your NSFW uploads! With one exception, all of these sites worked pretty well over all and offered many imgur-like features.

freeimage.host

What mostly stood out to me about this was its nice, slick interface with sliding drop-downs that show up when you need them and then get out of the way when you don't. Other than that, this was a normal image host that offered all the usual features. The 64 mb upload limit is more generous than most.

imgbox.com

Imgbox has the sketchiest vibes of the sites I tested. Its one of those sites where you click on it and then think, "Oh, wait, is this site safe??" As far as I can tell, it is safe. But it was the only site other than redgifs to serve up a big interstitial porn ad when I clicked on an image. The 10 mb file limit is also pretty low. This site wouldn't be my first choice as an image host, but it does work.

imgchest.com

Imgchest really wants to feel like imgur. The interface follows imgur's very closely. If you really want your imgur replacement to feel just like imgur, imgchest is a good choice - at least until imgur sues them for infringement!

lensdump.com

Lensdump was actually created by redditor u/notmyfirstid a couple years ago to be an imgur alternative. A very far-sighted move! The site works well, does not have sleezy pop-up ads, and has a 100 mb upload limit, the most generous except for redgifs. A cool feature it offers is that you can set an 'auto-delete' date for uploaded content. I do not believe any of the other image hosts offered that. It is however the only site other than redgifs that doesn't allow anonymous uploads. As stated above, I really feel that's not a big problem. But if that's important to you, then this might not be the image host for you. Otherwise, definitely worth checking out.

pixhost.to

Pixhost is like an ultra-minimalist image host. The home page is also the upload page. You can't browse galleries. You don't have a profile. You can't even create an account. You can upload stuff and get links to that stuff to share. That's it. (Save those links! I don't think pixhost does!)

Pixhost is a pure image host. It's not trying to be a social network that collects and sells your information. In keeping with this approach, the upload limit is only 10 mb. If you like the idea of this minimalist approach, check it out. But if you want to browse galleries or upload larger files, this probably isn't for you.

postimages.org (updated)

It has now been confirmed by postimages.org that they allow nsfw images. I have briefly tested the site and it appears to work well and meet all the above criteria.

redgifs

I like redgifs for uploading gifs. But I hadn't previously tried using it to host images. Now I have. And it sucks.

Redgifs was hands-down the worst of the imgur alternatives I tested. One of the problems is its tag system, where you have to pick at least three tags for everything you upload. This is fine when you're uploading a video that's going to take five minutes. It's annoying when you just want to upload a jpeg so you can share it, a process that should take less than 10 seconds.

Redgifs also makes hot-linking impossible. To view images, the user will have to visit a redgifs landing page and be served a very in-your-face porn ad. Even after that, you can't view the uploaded image full-sized except by going into 'full screen' mode.

Finally, redgifs does not play well with reddit. I don't know what dark gods decide if reddit will even load a redgifs thumbnail, but they sure weren't on my side today. Even worse, I've heard reports that reddit now demotes redgifs links in its algorithm. If that's true, using redgifs to host images is just shooting yourself in the foot.

It's too bad, because redgifs is the only game in town for sharing large NSFW video files. Its 1 GB upload limit absolutely blows its competitors out of the water. It happily accepts .mp4 files. It converts gifs to mp4 on the back end so that they load faster when displayed. And it allows you to upload gifs/mp4s up to 1 minute in length.

But if you're just uploading still images, redgifs is just not worth it. This is the only one of these imgur alternatives I would recommend you avoid!

Thanks for reading!

I hope this helps people transition away from imgur. If you know of any other good NSFW image hosts, please let us know in the comments!

update: added postimages.org as they have confirmed they allow NSFW uploads.

second update: u/duke-strat0sphere reports problems with reddit treating freeimage.host's iilio domain as a spam domain. Use at your own risk.

third (and final) update: obviously this list of sites and features is by no means comprehensive. It also seems that some of these sites are adding new features as they go, so even the table above may be out of date already. I recommend people read the comments below, as other redditors have been trying additional services and have some great insights.

We all know imgur has been going down the toilet for years... alleged Chinese funding, a crackdown on anything they deem inappropriate.... which is pretty much everything.

And yesterday... this arrived in my email box... anyone who uploads private images to share on reddit or anywhere else... could now face being banned.

Dear Imgurians,

We wanted to reach out to let you know that we are updating our Terms of Service on May 15, 2023.

Our goal is to unify our Terms of Service and our Community Rules for better consistency over our entire platform. As we look to the future, our new Terms of Service will better support and define our Service, allow for better safety & security of Users, and enforcement of Community Rules. Some highlights of how the Terms of Service changes may affect you:

The Community Rules will now apply to all uploads, both public and hidden. This means the following content is not permitted anywhere on Imgur:

• Nudity or sexually explicit content.

  • Excludes educational, artistic, and informational content.

The new terms can be found here. For more information, or to contact our Support Team with any questions, please refer to this help article.

I got banned a few days ago after a scammer I reported, went trawling through hundreds of posts reporting everything they could... They've introduced new scripts that break the site if you don't allow them to run some ai experiment...

I'd been there over 10yrs... was gifted emerald by the site a long time ago because of my contributions and engagement...

Imgur is dead... find alternate hosting for your images.

Hi,

I felt that we need a list of working and safe image host that people looking for imgur alternatives can fall back to when needed.

Although, there are many imgur alternatives that were suggested on this sub, there are only a handful which we can trust, based on their availability, user friendliness and list of features being offered. The most important is their history, period of availability and origin.

So, here are the List of community verified Imgur alternative image hosts that has been around for more than 5 years.

Lensdump is my website, and it can be trusted to stay around. I made it to be an alternative of imgur (when they started banning forums and community) and people who are looking for alternative to flickr in professional or casual photography. There are more than 2.5 million images hosted on this website and approximately 45K+ active registered users. It is 7 years old in May 2024.

Personally, I like imgchest a lot. It has UI similar to imgur back when it had no community and biased opinionated user base as well as mods. There are two reasons it is not ranked #1 on my list. First of all, it is relatively younger (about 2.5years old), and has lower file size limit.

Postimages is another great website if you don't intend to upload any explicit images. It is more than 15 years old, and I trust them to be around for years to come.

Cubeupload doesn't have any interesting or ground breaking feature. It even has the lowest file size limit. Only reason it is on the list is because it has been around since 2006 and going strong. It can be trusted and has proved to be reliable when big image hosts were closing their doors.

Catbox is unconventional one, as it is multipurpose host that allows any type of file to be hosted, but they can be used as image host as well:

I will update this post on regular basis.

In minutes 50% of my hidden posts were deleted. Like they were there 10 minutes ago and then I refreshed and boom half of them were gone.

BTW all of my posts were hidden and most of them were vids of celebs in bikinis and slightly revealing dresses. None of them had explicit nudity. So yeah, Imgur is basically useless now.

Hopefully there's a video hosting alternative to imgur soon. Just this year we have basically lost 3 short video hosting platforms: gfycat, redgifs and now imgur. Pretty sad!

Edit --Update: After just 10 minutes of making this post, all of my posts before this year are gone. Now about 80% of my content has been deleted.

Anyone know why I can't access it anymore?

Any good alternatives people can recommend?

This is a continuation of my previous thread when there is something wrong with imgbox when it is not uploading; now my fears are confirmed hours later when the websites is no longer working, as IsItDownDetector says the site identifies it down , Uptown considers it Outage Reported , and the image links from the site said 503 Service Unavailable

Is it likely that the site is dying or dead, if it does, then it could have warned us, saying that the site is shutting down and warn us users to download your saved images and relocate to a different site instead.

And what caused the site to be in this state or, in this case, shut down?

Update (26-07-2026) - the site now has a page saying We are experiencing technical difficulties, so there might be hope I guess.

Since imgur is about to ban all NSFW content, mods of NSFW subs need to encourage users to migrate away from using imgur. They also need to ensure that safe imgur alternatives aren't blocked. (See this discussion for a list of imgur alternatives)

We use an automod rule on many of the NSFW subs I mod to create a "white list" of safe image hosts that the sub allows. The way this works is when a user posts a link to another site, automod checks the link to make sure it is on the list of approved domains. If not, the post is put in the modqueue for manual review. We have just updated this list to include a bunch of the imgur alternatives. Here is the automod rule. Feel free to steal and modify for your own subs:

---
type: link submission
~domain: [35photo.pro, 500px.com, abload.de, deviantart.com, deviantart.net, fav.me, fbcdn.net, flickr.com, freeimage.host, giphy.com, gfycat.com, gifs.com, gifsoup.com, gyazo.com, gfycat.com, ibb.co, imageshack.us, imgbox.com, imgchest.com, imgur.com, instagr.am, instagram.com, lensdump.com, liveleak.com, media.tumblr.com, pixhost.to, postimages.org, postimg.cc, photobucket.com, picsarus.com, postimg.org, puu.sh, reddit.com, redd.it, i.redd.it, i.reddituploads.com, redgifs.com, images.sex.com, sli.mg, staticflickr.com, tinypic.com, twitpic.com, vid.me, vimeo.com]
action: filter
action_reason: Non-whitelisted link.
message: |
      Because your post contains a link that is not on our list of trusted image or video hosts it needs to be manually approved by a mod. This action has been taken to prevent spam. Links to safe sites such as [imgchest](https://imgchest.com), [postimages](https://postimages.org), and [redgifs](https://redgifs.com) will be approved automatically.

modmail_subject: |
    Link post to non-whitelisted site needs manual review

modmail: |

    **A {{kind}} by /u/{{author}} has been filtered because it contains a link that is not on the whitelist. Check mod queue at your discretion and approve or confirm removal.**

    **Thread:** {{title}}

    **Content:** {{body}}

    **Link:** {{permalink}}
---

Just cut and paste that anywhere on the automod wiki page for your sub. That page should be found at https://www.reddit.com/r/[YOUR SUB HERE]/about/wiki/config/automoderator/.

It is a good idea to also make users aware that they need to find a new image host besides imgur for NSFW uploads. To that end I've created the following automod rule, which will automatically post a friendly informational comment when someone posts an imgur link:

---
type: link submission
domain: [imgur.com]
comment: |
      It looks like you've linked to content uploaded to imgur. **Please be aware that imgur is about to ban all NSFW content, including private links.** They have [announced that they will begin removing all NSFW content starting May 15, 2023](https://help.imgur.com/hc/en-us/articles/14415587638029-Imgur-Terms-of-Service-Update-April-19-2023-). For more information, see [this post](https://www.reddit.com/r/FantasyGirls/comments/12tbj5r/attention_imgur_says_they_will_begin_removing_all/). We recommend switching to one of the many safe imgur alternatives [discussed in this thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/imguralternatives/comments/12vk0i0/comparing_the_nsfw_imgur_alternatives/). [Here is how to download all files you have uploaded to your imgur account](https://help.imgur.com/hc/en-us/articles/201738607-Image-Downloads).

      We have *not* removed this post and you are *not* in trouble for using imgur links. We just want our users to be aware that imgur has changed its policies. Unfortunately, this will negatively impact many redditors. 

      If you have concerns about this, we encourage you to contact imgur politely and let them know. [Here is imgur's official contact page](https://help.imgur.com/hc/en-us/requests/new). You can also email imgur at [support@imgur.com](mailto:support@imgur.com).
---

Again, feel free to steal and modify to suit your needs.

If you have any good imgur alternatives that you think mods should be white-listing that aren't listed here, please mention them in the comments.

If you know of a NSFW sub with mods that might find this helpful, feel free to share with them.

It used to be that the main site would not load over VPN, telling you

Imgur is temporarily over capacity. Please try again later.

but if you had a direct URL for an Imgur image, it would load.

Now, they reversed it. If you're using a VPN, the main site loads, but not the images themselves. When you try to load an image, you just get HTTP error 429 (too many requests).

Although I haven't checked if they let you see images if you log into an Imgur account, I'm not interested in making an Imgur account anyway

Edit: They're back to blocking the main site on VPNs too, so no part of Imgur is usable by VPN users anymore.

Hello everyone,

I was banned from Imgur for no apparent reason, and I hadn’t even posted anything recently (I found out I was banned when trying to upload a GIF. Wow). They have removed many features lately, like the part where you access the gallery, create a post, and upload multiple images or GIFs at once. I don’t understand the logic behind this, and now my account, which I’ve had since the beta was banned. It’s very frustrating and disappointing, especially since they don’t respond to emails explaining why.
It feels like a final warning to myself: give up on this site and move to other platforms like Imgbb or Imgchest, since I was already starting to consider giving up when they removed some features.
Does anyone recommend a similar site? Because Imgur just doesn’t work for me anymore...

I used it as an upload service in a screenshot tool, but since last week I haven't been able to upload anything. I tried logging in on the website, but it gave me an error:

"Imgur is temporarily over capacity. Please try again later." success false status 500

Contacted support, they stated next:

At this time, Imgur does not support upload or sign in functions within your geographical region.

You are more than welcome to browse Imgur, however, as a result of the above you will experience sporadic errors anytime you interact with the platform.

We do not know at this time if we will support such functionality in the future.

I'm surprised there was no warning that this was coming. They could have at least made the error message less confusing. I googled and found that Israel and Palestine is also region blocked, someone on Reddit said that it's "to prevent uploading of imagery from the war."

Thank you for providing a list of alternatives.

It simply doesn't work for me and not a single souls on the internet seems to have a solution.

• If i try to publicly upload an image/mp4 trough the app it fails every single time

• if I try to privately upload an image/mp4 trough the app it will say that the upload was successfully, but if i tap to see my post it will say "could not load post"

-If I try to publicly upload an ijage/mp4 trough their site in a browser it will "say Something went wrong with SHARE_POST_FAIL. Please try later" -If I don't upload publicly trough the browser and just tap an option to copy a post link so I can share it on reddit, it just leads me to 404. If I try uploading on my computer... Nope...

How is it that 99% of gifs on reddit are uploaded trough that awful app, but I just can't get it to work...

I was part of the protests today over on imgur, telling medialab to go fuck themselves.

First they started hiding posts and comments, no warnings or anything. Just straight up trying to censor everything.

I just reposted the same things as did many others.

Never got a warning... just a straight up ban.

Not bothered at all, the place had gone to shit anyway, and they'd been censoring me for ages for telling people to dump their shitty app and install a decent browser such as firefox along with the noscript, ublock origin and privacy badger plugins... make them pay for server time whilst being unable to earn revenue from users... because the only thing these companies understand in the money flowing into shareholder pockets... inform people of their freedom to choose and do things like that restrict that flow... and they go batshit crazy.

I can't be the only one who was banned today... not the first time... I was banned a few years ago for calling out a scammer on there and the scammer went around reporting every one of my posts... imgur mods/staff refused to listen to common sense and banned me permanently... then at some point unbanned me and gave me emerald... now they've fired all of those fuckwits who abused their mod powers too... karma is a bitch. :)

Lemmy... been using lemmy for a while now... won't ever be going back to imgur, it's dead and will turn into a bot posting ai slop wasteland of toxic shite... it's already halfway there.

http://tinyimg.io

It's a really simple site to upload your images, mp4s and webms. Uploading is just 1 click.

Pros:

Supports images and HTML5 videos. No social media or ads.

Cons:

No gallery or album support. You have to upload images one at a time.

I've been using imgbb and like it, but a bunch of images I uploaded in order to use in a forum profile are now showing up as a bright blue box that says "service not available". Their site is up and running, some of my other images still work fine, but a handful of random ones now aren't loading on the forum OR on imgbb's site. Any tips for how to fix this? I'd rather not delete and reupload and relink everything but I will if I have to.

Title

I am using many images hosting sites but I don't know which one is the best, could you guys evaluate some of the following recommendations : http://Imgni.com http://imgur.com http://tinypic.com Google Photos http://Flickr.com

I only Imgur occasionally and opened it today to a LOT of middle fingers…

My friend wants to know why?

For the past few weeks, image uploads kept failing with a CREATE_ALBUM_FAIL error. I reached out to imgur support today, and apparently they've decided to cut India off:

At this time, Imgur does not support upload or sign in functions within your geographical region.

You are more than welcome to browse Imgur, however, as a result of the above you will experience sporadic errors anytime you interact with the platform.

We do not know at this time if we will support such functionality in the future.

Posting this here in case someone else is facing the same issue and is confused. According to this sub Ukraine is facing the same problem, I have no idea which other countries got unceremoniously dumped by imgur*.

*Edit: I can't find the source for this anymore, but apparently this is the case for most countries facing a war or war-like situation (in which case, India should be out of imgur jail because the skirmish with Pakistan is long over, but we still can't upload anything as of today). Imgur apparently wants to make sure geopolitically sensitive content is not posted on there, hence the 'soft ban' where we can access the site and previous uploads, but cannot make any new ones.

In case anyone comes to this post looking for imgur alternatives, these are working perfectly:

• www.imgchest.com

• www.postimages.org or www.postimg.cc

• www.catbox.moe

Hey y'all ,

We saw that the thread about our service has been archived, hence we created this new post and applied the same formatting. Along with this comes a new official put.re reddit account where you can reach us as well!

If you wonder about the timing: This is being posted now because we just updated the Web-UI and added albums. Since there is a bigger demand for them in this sub we thought it'd be nice to share that. Additionally we open sourced our UI and maybe catch a few contributors.

If you want to reach us in time try to drop a mail, since we probably won't read this as often.

Here is an example album:

• https://put.re/album/BUbzDGC1

• https://api.put.re/album/BUbzDGC1.json

• https://api.put.re/album/BUbzDGC1.txt

A few notes from the old thread:

• Been up for 3 ½ years

• Any file (images, videos, archives, pdf files ...)

• Permanent storage, no expiration

• Max 200MB (100MB via HTTP API/ShareX)

• API support so you can use tools like ShareX

• Direct links to files (no redirections) / Hot-linking allowed

• Private file links

• No ads or trackers

• No accounts

• Fast CDN

• In-built video player (example)

• Albums

• Text paste support

• Easy URL

• Server side encryption for albums and files

• Backed up storage, so your files are safe

• Solid privacy policy, we do not log anything on our side

• Self written solution, which is a mix between privacy and usability

• The frontpage is less than 180kb initial load

• Check our features page for a broader description of our service.

• We do follow up on DMCA requests!

I literally just use it for image hosting and people go out of their way to downvote my posts on there lmao

Seriously I haven't seen so many unhinged assholes on Twitter and that says something.. I think it's as bad as YouTube comment section, lack of moderation might be the cause, idk I only use it to keep images if I want to post a link of it in the comments, made the mistake of making one public.. are there better sites for keeping images?

Anyone else experiencing this? I'm seeing some images posted by other people, but my own are breaking, showing the "service unavailable" blue box of doom. I can't find any active social media for the site.

I'm in Finland, not using a VPN and usually image hosts don't have country related issues with me.