Our story so far

Founded in 2013 as a humble Tumblr blog, Unsplash has grown into an industry-leading visual community. It’s become a source of inspiration for everyone from award-winning writers like Deepak Chopra to industry-titans like Apple, and millions of creators worldwide.

2023
May 23, 2023

👀 1 Trillion Views

With 5,162 views every second, this milestone shouldn’t come as such a surprise. Yet, the reality of surpassing 1 TRILLION views is truly mind-boggling.

See the top 10 most viewed images

April 14, 2023

🚀 Celebrating 5 Million Images

There are now 5 MILLION IMAGES in the Unsplash library.

Celebrating 5 Million Images

2022
October 5, 2022

➕ Introducing Unsplash+

We are excited to announce the launch of Unsplash+. An unlimited subscription for access to new content, features, and expanded legal protections. Unsplash+ also provides visual artists with unique opportunities to shoot commissioned content.

Don’t worry: the Unsplash open library isn’t going anywhere.

Learn more

April 27, 2022

🌎 Unsplash is now in multiple languages

Unsplash’s language settings now reflect the diversity of our audience.

March 2, 2022

🌱 Introducing Unsplash for Good

Unsplash for Good supports charities and organizations by building awareness on global issues through visual content.

Unsplash for Good

2021
November 1, 2021

⬇️ Download History

In your Account Settings you’ll find a new section called ‘Download History’ that contains a list of all the images you’ve previously downloaded.

Download History

October 1, 2021

🏆 Unsplash Awards celebrates 5 years

Unsplash Awards celebrates 5 years running with judges from Nike, Dazed Digital, Google, Vice + more.

Unsplash Awards

October 1, 2021

💎 Unsplash Library now accepts 3D Renders

Today we’re officially accepting 3D renders to the Unsplash Library!

Unsplash Library now accepts 3D Renders

August 4, 2021

🚀 Celebrating 3 Million Images on Unsplash

Unsplash Library reached 3 million images by 250,000 contributors!

Celebrating 3 Million Images

July 21, 2021

👨‍💻 Unsplash + Zoom

Unsplash images now available in Zoom's new Virtual Backgrounds app!

Unsplash + Zoom

May 6, 2021

🖥 Introducing Uses

The new ‘Uses’ feature allows you to now see exactly where and how your photos are used!

Learn more

March 30, 2021

🤝 Unsplash is being acquired by Getty Images

A huge milestone in Unsplash's journey - being acquired by Getty Images.

Unsplash continues to operate as a standalone brand and division of Getty Images. The entire Unsplash team will be staying and building Unsplash in the direction we have been. The main difference now is we have access to the resources and experience of Getty Images to help accelerate our plans to create the world’s most useful visual asset library.

Unsplash is being acquired by Getty Images

January 26, 2021

📱 Unsplash for iOS is growing up

We’ve reworked almost everything: discovery, navigation, search, profiles and more.

Unsplash for iOS is growing up

January 7, 2021

🔎 Introducing Visual Search

Transforming our visual understanding of an image into keyword inputs is challenging. That's why we released Visual Search, which allows you to drop any version of an image into Unsplash to find similar images, topics & the source image.

Introducing Visual Search

January 7, 2021

📸 Introducing Unsplash Hire

We rolled out the Unsplash Hire: a more direct way to connect and work with Unsplash contributors to create world-class images. Whether it’s to find the perfect photographer for your event or to create new images for your company’s social media accounts, you can now connect easily on Unsplash.

Unsplash Hire

2020
August 6, 2020

🎁 Open sourcing Unsplash's dataset

We released the most complete high-quality open image dataset ever, free for anyone to use to further research in machine learning, image quality, search engines, and more.

More on the dataset

July 30, 2020

🚀 Celebrating 2 milestones

2 million contributions from 200k global contributors

Read more

May 7, 2020

🌍 The United Nations joins Unsplash

We teamed up with the United Nations to create an Open Visual Public Service Announcement System for the Internet in response to COVID-19.

Learn more

January 30, 2020

🆕 Institutions join Unsplash

The Library of Congress, British Library, Boston Public Library, National Cancer Institute, and many more join Unsplash to share their vast libraries with the Unsplash community.

Read more

2019
December 10, 2019

📣 Introducing Unsplash for Brands

We launched Unsplash for Brands, a new kind of advertising for the internet. One that doesn't have to be annoying or creepy to work.

Learn more

July 26, 2019

🎓 Unsplash goes back to school

We launched Unsplash for Education - connecting students and teachers everywhere to powerful, inspiring visuals. Through our partnership with Instructure, the Unsplash library is now directly available in schools and universities around the world.

Discover Unsplash for Education

July 25, 2019

🗽 The New York Public Library joins Unsplash

The Unsplash library enters new territory, thanks to the New York Public Library’s new account showcasing powerful photography from important moments in history.

Download their photos

July 5, 2019

⬇️ 1 billion downloads

Which means, our community has inspired and enabled 1 billion creations - including presentations, reports, websites, collages, paintings, wallpapers, and more.

May 30, 2019

🙌 Thank you a million times

You’ve contributed 1 million images to Unsplash - allowing more people to create, more problems to be solved, and more progress to be made. And we owe it all to our passionate, creative community.

It’s all thanks to you

March 3, 2019

⚡️ Unsplash’s reach is unleashed

Over 1000 products are now powered by the Unsplash API. With new partners like BuzzFeed, Squarespace, and Figma, the Unsplash library is more widely accessible than ever.

Learn about the Unsplash API

2018
December 13, 2018

🆕 A new logo for Unsplash

After years using a generic camera icon, our design team teamed up with Mackey Saturday to figure out an identity that works better for Unsplash.

Read more

May 7, 2018

🔌 Unsplash API integrated in 500 products

Unsplash API partners now account for 30 percent of the distribution power of Unsplash. Partners include Medium, Trello, FiftyThree, Product Hunt, Adobe, Google, Ghost, and Tencent (to name a few).

Read more

April 22, 2018

📸 Unsplash passes 500,000 photos

5 years ago, we added the tagline '10 photos every 10 days' when we only had 10 photos for the first version of Unsplash. We didn't know if we'd get more photos. Then, creators from around the world came together to make it happen.

April 5, 2018

📱 Unsplash for iOS launches

Today, we’re bringing all the freely usable photography on Unsplash to iPad and iPhone. And we’re doing it in a way that focuses not only on photography but on the creative use of it.

Read more

February 15, 2018

💵 Unsplash raises $8 million to build a new economy around photography

The Unsplash ecosystem is pushing the impact of photography further than ever before. Our aim is to make photography a universally accessible art form. The purpose of raising this investment is to build a new type of economic future for photography when it is set free.

Read more

February 7, 2018

🤝 Unsplash + Medium

Every photo on Unsplash, now available in Medium.

January 4, 2018

⬇️ Unsplash passes 10 photo downloads per second

2017
September 28, 2017

🖥 Introducing: Unsplash Wallpapers for Mac

A simple, free app to turn your Mac desktop background into a rotating gallery of stunning HD photography from the Unsplash community.

Get Unsplash Wallpapers for Mac

September 14, 2017

📸 The Unsplash library hits 300,000 photos

Another major milestone for the community as over 50,000 photographers contribute their work openly on Unsplash.

September 1, 2017

🏆 The Unsplash Awards

The Unsplash Awards are a month-long celebration created to recognize the powerful impact Unsplash contributors have made through their generosity and artistry.

Read more

May 9, 2017

🚀 Launch of the free Unsplash API

Serving over 300M+ requests/month to over 7,000 developers including Trello, InVision, and Weebly.

Read more

January 5, 2017

👋 Hello, Unsplash, Inc.

Unsplash spins out from Crew and will now operate as its own company. Our aim is to make Unsplash the most enjoyable, inspirational community in the world. Join the community or apply here if you'd like to help build Unsplash full-time.

Read more

2016
December 1, 2016

👀 Unsplash hits 1 billion photos viewed per month

Over 3 photos are downloaded a second on Unsplash. And the Unsplash library has grown from hundreds to hundreds of thousands of photos. None of this would be possible without our community. One built on the principle of supporting creativity.

October 25, 2016

🌎 Unsplash photos covering the world

Our community is quickly mapping the world in Creative Commons Zero photos.

October 25, 2016

📺 Unsplash + Apple TV

We introduced Unsplash for Apple TV bringing thousands of beautiful photos to your living room.

See more

May 27, 2016

🎂 Unsplash turns 3: Approaches 100 million downloads

In 3 years, over 8.8 billion photos were viewed on Unsplash. And downloaded 92 million times.

See year 3 in review

May 1, 2016

☕️ Introducing Unsplash HQ & Café

We turned our office into a cafe workspace for creators. Story on Fast Company, HypeBeast, and Cool Hunter.

Check out the space

April 8, 2016

🛰 SpaceX historic rocket sea landing on Unsplash

SpaceX makes history landing the first rocket at sea. And giving that photo for anyone to use on Unsplash.

Download SpaceX's historic rocket landing photo

March 21, 2016

🍎 Apple iPad + Unsplash

Apple iPad Pro launches with photos from Unsplash contributors Samuel Zeller and Anton Repponen.

February 25, 2016

📰 Photos featured on Unsplash now viewed more than the frontpage of the New York Times

With over 500 million photos viewed per month, photography on Unsplash now reaches more people than any other platform.

February 15, 2016

🥔 Pringles ad: May be one of the best things ever made with Unsplash

"You'll be her favorite grandkid, Andrew, once you give Grandma the #LastPringle". Original photo by Alex Harvey.

See Pringles ad

February 1, 2016

➕ Unsplash Collections: Searching Unsplash gets smarter

You’re the curator now. Unsplash Collections opens Unsplash up for anyone to create, sort, and share collections of Unsplash photos.

See more

2015
December 1, 2015

🌝 We landed on the moon!

The first selfie on Unsplash comes from NASA.

Download photos from NASA

November 18, 2015

📚 Introducing Unsplash Book

Unsplash Book becomes the first fully crowdsourced open book featuring 250 pages of photos, essays, and art with contributors receiving a percentage of all profits. Featured by Kickstarter.

See the book

November 9, 2015

🚀 Unsplash Instant launches

Unsplash Instant puts downloadable Unsplash photos in your browser tabs. Instant was created during our #makeday hack event we have each month.

Get Unsplash Instant

August 26, 2015

🚀 Unsplash API launches: Putting 30,000 high-resolution free photos in your app

What would you build with access to the most powerful photo engine in the world? We launched Unsplash API to bring more exposure to contributors and make it even easier to build great things with Unsplash photos.

Read more

August 19, 2015

🍎 Apple + Unsplash

We partnered with Apple stores in Montreal, Boston, and New York for Apple’s "Shot with iPhone" campaign. We turned Apple Stores into art galleries with photos from Unsplash.

July 23, 2015

🎟 Unsplash Events go worldwide: From Tokyo to Seoul to Honolulu to London

Over 30 events organized by local Unsplash Ambassadors.

May 27, 2015

🥳 Unsplash turns 2: Triples in 6 months

Unsplash turns 2 and hits 30 million downloads from 15 thousand photos, by 8 thousand photographers.

See year 2 in review

May 27, 2015

🥂 The First Unsplash Event

Starting in our hometown of Montreal, we began hosting events to meet and connect our community.

February 18, 2015

📰 Our way of doing business covered in Fast Company and Inc.

We believe making something useful is the best marketing there is.

Full story · Fast Company · Quartz · Inc

January 21, 2015

🔍 Unsplash Search

Unsplash Search launches powered by hundreds of thousands of tags contributed by the Unsplash community.

Try Unsplash Search

2014
September 14, 2014

🚚 Unsplash moves off Tumblr. Passes 1 million downloads per month

Unsplash passes 1 million downloads per month. To keep up with growth, we moved Unsplash off Tumblr to a fully custom site. 776 photos on Unsplash at the time.

May 30, 2014

⬇️ Unsplash hits 10 million downloads

2013
September 30, 2013

⬇️ Unsplash hits 1 million downloads

September 14, 2013

👨🏼‍💻 Co-founder Luke Chesser becomes first full-time Unsplash team member. (Finally gets his own desk.)

Luke had been sharing a beat up, sad-looking table. He was so excited to finally have his own desk that he posted it on Unsplash. Luke's desk has now been seen by over 2.7 million people.

May 27, 2013

🚀 Unsplash launches as a $19 Tumblr theme

We hated expensive, cheesy stock photos. Instead, we teamed up with a local photographer to take a few custom shots.

We only used one photo though. So with the extras, we setup a $19 tumblr theme and gave the rest of the images away for free. We launched on Hacker News and were voted the top story.

See the first blog post using an Unsplash photo

We’ve got big plans for the future of Unsplash. If you want to help us create it, we’d love to hear from you.

We owe a huge thank you to the selfless Unsplash contributors who give their work for free in support of the community. Without them, none of this would be possible.

❤️️ With love,

Unsplash Team

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