How to use SauceNAO, and is it safe?

What SauceNAO is

The name comes from the slang "need to know the source of this now". SauceNAO's about page says the search went public in October 2008, was designed and built by a developer called Xamayon, and now indexes several billion images from web services, anime, manga, movies, TV shows and other sources. Checked on 27 October 2026 on saucenao.com.

It is not a general web search like Google Lens. SauceNAO only knows the images in its own indexes, and each index is one source: an art site, an image board, a manga scan collection, an anime frame set. Its status page lists them. For manga, the two that matter are Madokami, a manga scan index last updated in 2018, and MangaDex, a chapter index that SauceNAO keeps adding new chapters to.

How it works

SauceNAO does not publish the details of its engine, but the general idea is the same as other similarity-based image search. It reduces your picture to a compact visual fingerprint and compares that with the fingerprints of every image in the indexes you search. The closest ones come back with a score.

That explains both what it is good at and where it fails:

• It matches pictures, not words. It cannot read speech bubbles or understand a plot.
• It only finds what it already has. If a chapter was never indexed, no crop will find it.
• Edits hurt. Filters, mirroring, zoom, captions and app bars change the fingerprint.
• A clean, whole panel helps. The closer your picture is to the original page, the higher the score.

How to search SauceNAO on a computer

1. Crop your picture to one panel. Leave out speech bubbles you do not need, watermarks and borders.
2. Open saucenao.com. The upload box says "Browse, Drop, or Ctrl+V to Paste an Image": drag the file in, press Ctrl+V after copying an image, or click Select Image.
3. Leave the index list on its default unless you know where the image comes from. For safer results, turn on the "Safeish Search" option shown on the search page.
4. Press search, then read the top result and its similarity score before clicking anything.

How to search SauceNAO on a phone

SauceNAO has no official app. The website works in a phone browser:

1. Take a screenshot of the panel and crop it in your photo app, so the app bar and the clock are gone.
2. Open saucenao.com in Safari or Chrome, not inside the TikTok, Instagram or Discord browser, which often trips its security check.
3. Tap Select Image, choose the cropped screenshot, and search.

Our guide to reverse image searching a manga on iPhone and Android covers the phone steps for Google Lens too.

Reading the results

Each result shows a few things worth reading in order:

• Similarity: how close the match is, as a percentage.
• Index: which collection it came from. A manga index means a chapter page; an art site means an illustration, which may be fan art rather than the series itself.
• Title and part: for manga, the series name and usually the chapter.
• Creator and links: the artist or author and links to the source, often a database page.

SauceNAO does not publish a cut-off for a good match, so use the score as a guide. In our test of its sister engine IQDB, every right answer scored between 76% and 96% and every wrong one between 46% and 49%. Treat 80% or more as likely, 60% to 80% as worth checking against the cover, and anything in the 40s as a miss. SauceNAO folds weak matches away under "Low similarity results have been hidden"; those are almost always wrong, and they are not filtered for adult content.

Got a title? Confirm it on AniList by comparing the cover and the art, then read it on an official platform. Links in any search result can lead to unofficial reading sites.

Search limits

SauceNAO counts searches per IP address, and per account once you log in. Its legal page says limits depend on whether you are logged in and on your account type (checked on 27 October 2026). The latest copies of its own limit messages that we could find, from 2023 to 2025, say a visitor without an account gets 20 searches a day and 3 every 30 seconds. We could not re-check those two numbers today, because saucenao.com answers automated checks with a security page. A free account raises both limits, and the paid upgrade on SauceNAO's Patreon starts at 6 US dollars a month (checked on 27 October 2026).

If you hit a limit or a security check, our SauceNAO troubleshooting guide explains each message and what to do next.

Is SauceNAO safe?

For a manga panel, yes, with two things to know. SauceNAO's legal page, checked on 27 October 2026, says uploaded images are stored in full and thumbnail size for a short period, generally less than half an hour, then deleted. Images you give it by link may be cached for longer. It tracks the number of searches by IP address and account, says the content of searches is not logged, and uses cookies and Google Analytics.

• Your image does leave your device. That is how any upload search works. Do not upload personal photos, documents or anything with your face or name on it.
• Results can be explicit. SauceNAO indexes adult art sites and image boards as well as manga, and its hidden low matches are not filtered. Use Safeish Search, and think twice before opening low matches.

Your SauceNAO API key, and how MangaTrace uses it

An API key is a long code that lets a program search SauceNAO for you, under your account and its limits. SauceNAO does not allow API searches without an account: when we tried without a valid key on 27 October 2026, it answered "The anonymous account type does not permit API usage." Registering is free; after signing in, your key is on your account page under api.

MangaTrace's image tool has an optional "Have a free SauceNAO key?" panel. Here is exactly what it does:

1. Your key is saved only in your own browser. "Forget key" deletes it.
2. When you search, your cropped image and the key go to a small relay on MangaTrace, because SauceNAO does not accept searches sent straight from another website's page.
3. The relay passes them to SauceNAO, asking only its manga indexes (Madokami and MangaDex) and asking it to hide expected and suspected explicit results. It stores nothing and logs nothing, not the image and not the key.
4. Results show inside the page with similarity, title, chapter, author and your remaining searches. Thumbnails are removed, matches under 60% are tucked behind "Show low matches", and links go only to MangaUpdates, MyAnimeList and AniList.

The ordinary SauceNAO button in the tool is different: it opens SauceNAO's own results page in a new tab, exactly as if you had uploaded the crop yourself. That page searches SauceNAO's default indexes, so its usual advice applies, including Safeish Search.

When SauceNAO is the wrong tool

SauceNAO is strongest on black-and-white chapter pages. For covers, colour webtoon panels and frames from edits, Google Lens usually does better; see Google Lens vs SauceNAO for manga. For anime-style illustrations, IQDB is a good second opinion, and the tested SauceNAO alternatives show which engine fits which picture.

One thing MangaTrace cannot do: raise SauceNAO's limits or skip its security check. The plain button hands your picture to SauceNAO exactly as you would, and the key panel works within your own account's limits.