Bing Images Search by Date

Each minute, millions of pictures get posted on the internet. And within this high-traffic driven and constantly changing network, finding a picture which was published a few hours ago, a month ago, or even a year ago may at first seem like a difficult task. But Bing's Image Search can help you tackle this problem and get all the fresh visual content that you need. This process of narrowing down your search is achieved by using Bing Image Search's Date filter. As the name itself suggests, the Date filter allows you to search pictures based on hours, days, months, etc. This is an immensely useful search tool for people who need to search for pictures related to current affairs.

Follow these steps to get started using the Date filter:

1. Access the Bing Image Search (US site) -- we chose to access the US site since this one has all filters available for now. We used "Barack Obama" as the search term for this tutorial (see Figure 1).
   
   
   Figure 1: Search results on Bing when no Date filter is applied
   
   Do you notice the Filters bar above the search results in Figure 1? Do note that the fifth filter, Date has been highlighted in red.
   
   
   Note: Bing's Image Search page changes every day -- and the screenshots and techniques on this page are current at the time of writing. Even if there are some changes, basic concepts explained on this page should be the same.


2. Click on the Date button and it brings up the menu that you see in Figure 2, below.
   
   
   Figure 2: Options within the Date menu


3. As you can see, this filter allows you to search the pictures by date. Essentially, you can choose from 4 variations -- additionally the All option returns results of all variations (see Figure 1, above). Let us now explore all these options:
   
   
   1. All: Default option (see Figure 1, earlier on this page), provides results of all pictures macthing your search term.
   
   
   2. Past 24 hours: Allows you to search pictures which were published online in the last 24 hours. Note that you can find the publish time of the picture on the bottom left of each picture thumbail (time highlighted in blue within Figure 3, below)
      
      
      Figure 3: Picture results from the past 24 hours
   
   
   3. Past week: Brings up the results containing pictures which were indexed by Bing in the past week -- Again, you can also find the information on how many days ago the picture was published on the bottom left of each individual picture thumbnail (days highlighted in blue within Figure 4, below).
      
      
      Figure 4: Picture results from the Past week
   
   
   4. Past month: Brings up the results containing pictures which were published and indexed by Bing in the past month. you can also find the actual date of the picture on the bottom left of each individual picture thumbnail (date highlighted in blue within Figure 5, below).
      
      
      Figure 5: Pictures indexed in the Past month
   
   
   5. Past Year: Brings up the results containing pictures which were published and indexed by Bing in the past year -- you can also find the date mentioned on the bottom left of each individual picture thumbnail (date highlighted in blue within Figure 6, below).
      
      
      Figure 6: Pictures results from the Past year
   
   
4. Do remember that you can always combine the different filters -- so it's quite easy to bring up pictures of Barrack Obama posted online in the Past year, with Just faces (People filter), square pictures (Layout filter), restricted to photographs (Type filter) use the color "Black" predominantly (Color filter) -- and are also large in resolution (Size filter) -- see Figure 7.
   
   
   Figure 7: Combine various filters to reveal the power behind Bing Image Search

Remember though that all pictures you find may not be suitable for use in your presentation slides or other projects -- learn how you can find pictures that are allowed to be used in our Bing Image Search by License tutorial.