How to get revenge porn taken down, step by step

By Yair Cohen, Solicitor specialising in internet law. Updated 6 October 2026.

This guide is part of our porn lawyers section.

If your ex-partner, or someone you have never met, has put intimate images or videos of you online without your consent, this article sets out step by step how we get them taken down and keep them down. Right now it may feel as though the pictures are everywhere and nothing will shift them. A lot of the people who get in touch with us have spent nights checking the same sites, wondering who has seen them, and feeling ashamed, though they are the ones who were wronged. Please do not blame yourself, and please do not give up. A report and a letter from us is enough in most cases, and it works quickly. Court is the fallback, not the starting point. If you want to understand your rights before you act, our guide to revenge porn legal advice explains the law and what the person who did this has done wrong.

Step 1: keep the proof, then step back

Keep your own record before anything comes down, because the trail can vanish with the images. In a revenge porn case that record is wider than a list of links. Keep the messages from the person you believe is responsible, any threats, the names of the accounts that posted the pictures, and anything that shows when it began. Our guide to how we get sexual images and videos taken down lists exactly what to save and how to save it.

Then step back. Replying to the person, pleading with them or warning them that you are taking action can prompt them to post more, or to move the images somewhere harder to reach. Leave that part to us. If they are using the images to make you do something, read our guide to sexual blackmail and sextortion first, because that changes the order in which we act. You can also go to the police, and our work starts the same day if you want it to, since the civil route does not wait for them.

Step 2: block the images before they spread further

If the images are still on your phone, you can stop many platforms accepting them again before a single report goes out. StopNCII turns each image into a digital fingerprint on your own device, and the platforms that take part block anything that matches. The pictures themselves never leave your phone. It takes a few minutes, and we suggest doing it on day one, because someone who has shared images once may try again when they find the first copies have gone. The Revenge Porn Helpline offers free support to adults in the UK alongside this.

Where the image dates from before your eighteenth birthday, the law classes it as an indecent image whatever your age today, and the Internet Watch Foundation is able to have it removed and report it. Embarrassment is understandable, but please do not let it stop you asking. You have done nothing wrong.

Step 3: report it as the person in the images

Since 29 June 2026 a platform that serves UK users has had 48 hours to take an intimate image down once the person in it, or someone acting on their behalf, reports it properly, under the Online Safety Act 2023, section 10(3A). What a proper report needs to say, and what happens when a platform misses the deadline, is covered in our removal guide. What matters here is that we send the report on your behalf, worded the way the law requires, so you never have to open the images again or argue with a help desk.

Where you took the pictures yourself, or they were taken with your agreement at the time, there are other grounds as well, and we pick the one each site is least able to argue with. We will not weigh you down with the mechanics. You tell us where the images are, and we deal with the sites.

Step 4: deal with the person who shared them

Getting the images off the sites is only half the job, because the person who shared them can upload them again tomorrow. That is why our first letter in a revenge porn case goes to that person, as well as to the sites. If they have passed the images on, or someone else is now behind the accounts, we write to whoever holds and controls the images now. The letter tells them that what they have done is a criminal offence and a civil wrong, that we act for you, and what they have to do: delete every copy, confirm in writing that they have, and sign a binding promise, called an undertaking, never to share them again. In our experience that letter is where it usually stops. Someone who assumed nobody would come after them finds that somebody has.

Once we are acting for you, that person deals with us, not with you. If they contact you, you pass it to us. If they threaten, we answer. For many of our clients this brings the first proper night's sleep in weeks, because the person who had all the power no longer has your attention.

Most people want it to go away and nothing more. Some also want compensation for what they have been put through. Posting intimate images of you without your agreement misuses your private information, repeated posting can be harassment, and both carry damages, so where that is right for you we add it to the letter. If they refuse, a privacy injunction from the court can order them to stop, and in most cases the court lets you keep your identity off the public record.

Step 5: get them out of search results

For many people the worst part is that a search for their name brings the images up, in front of an employer, a new partner or their children. The 48-hour clock applies to search engines serving UK users as well, and Google also has its own removal process for personal sexual content. We use both at once, and we ask for your name to be separated from the content, so that a search for you goes back to showing your work, your social media and nothing else. For many of our clients that is the moment ordinary life starts again.

Step 6: when you cannot name the person

Not knowing who posted the images does not hold us up. An ex-partner is the most common answer, but we also act for people whose pictures a stranger lifted from a hacked email or online storage account, or shared by someone they met online and trusted with them. Where the account is anonymous, our own investigators piece together who is behind it from usernames, timings and the small details only one person could know, as our guide to identifying anonymous internet users describes. Where a platform holds the answer, we ask the court for a Norwich Pharmacal order requiring it to hand the details over. Where even that fails, an injunction against "persons unknown" is still possible, as in GYH v Persons Unknown, where we acted for the claimant. And if the image is not really you but has been made to look like you, our guide to deepfake intimate images covers your position.

Step 7: keep them down

Removal lasts when three things are in place: the person responsible has promised in writing not to repeat it, the platforms are blocking matches, and someone is keeping watch. After the first clean-up we carry on checking for new copies on your behalf, so that anything that slips through comes down before you ever see it, and so that the checking is no longer your job. Where a copy reappears on a platform you have already reported to, the law now expects the platform to act without a fresh report from you, and we hold them to that.

Taking the images down is half the job. Making sure they never come back is the other half.

Why it can take time, and why quick fixes do not last

Most images come down within days of our first letters, but a full clean-up can take longer, and you deserve to know why. We deal with each site in turn. Some operators hide who they are. Some are in countries where the process is slower, and a notice sent to the wrong company is a notice wasted. A clumsy approach can also draw more eyes to the images, which is exactly what you do not want, so we move deliberately and quietly. If a site or its host sits in the United States or Canada, we bring in the American internet lawyers we work with, which our porn lawyers page covers.

Some people come to us after paying an online clean-up company. In our experience those services take down a handful of links, but with no legal grounds behind the request and nobody following it up, the same pictures surface again a few weeks later, and the person who posted them has never been touched. If that has happened to you, nothing you tried before stops us acting now.

People we have helped

We have changed names and some details in these stories to protect our clients' privacy.

Freddie came across intimate images and videos of his girlfriend, Abbie, on adult websites, on Reddit and on other sites. Abbie had filmed all of it herself. She had only ever live-streamed on one small website, and she may have sent some of the content privately to one person. She never meant it to be spread across the internet. Freddie reported what he could straight away, and he had used an online takedown service successfully in the past.

By the time they came to us, their main worry was a public Telegram group that used Abbie's full name, pretended to be her and shared the content. A Reddit account was posting about her too. The images there had already gone, but the comments left no doubt about what they had shown. Freddie and Abbie suspected a man abroad whom Abbie had been in contact with and had sent images to. In one of the published videos Abbie says his name, and the Telegram group held images that only he had ever received.

We advised them to do two things at the same time. Because Abbie had filmed the content herself, the copyright was hers, so we could use copyright takedown notices. Alongside that, we set about finding out who was behind the accounts, starting with Telegram.

We served copyright notices under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act on each of the websites carrying the content, and both the content and the entire channels came down. We also obtained a Norwich Pharmacal order for the information identifying the user behind the accounts, and it led to the man Freddie and Abbie had suspected, so they no longer had to wonder who was behind it. The last of the images came down, and the two of them could stop checking.

Their case carries a simple lesson. People who made the images themselves sometimes assume they have fewer rights, and some feel the fault is all theirs. The opposite can be true: owning the copyright gave Abbie one of the fastest routes to getting everything taken down. More of our work is in our privacy cases.

Frequently asked questions

How quickly can revenge porn be taken down?

In most cases the first copies are gone within days of our letters, and platforms serving UK users are expected to act within two days of a proper report. A clean-up across many sites can take a few weeks, and we start with the copies people are most likely to find, and with Google.

Do I have to contact my ex myself?

No, and we would ask you not to. Once we act for you, all contact goes through us, and the demand that every copy is deleted and a written promise given comes from us, not from you.

Can I get compensation as well as removal?

Yes, where that is what you want. The law treats this as a misuse of your private information and, where it is repeated, as harassment, and both allow a claim for damages. Most of our clients choose to focus on removal, and we follow your lead.

What if I have no idea who posted them?

We can still act against the sites, and we can usually identify the person through our own investigation or through a court order against the platform that holds the account details.

Will the images come back after they are removed?

Sometimes a copy resurfaces, which is why we ask the person responsible for a binding undertaking, use StopNCII to block matches, and keep checking after the first removal, so that job is ours rather than yours.

Should I try a paid clean-up service first?

We would not. Those services tend to remove a few links and leave the person who shared the images untouched, so the pictures come back. If you have already paid one, that does not stop us acting.