Guides/Create content/Media/Openverse

Openverse

Last reviewed on November 9, 2025

Openverse is a search engine for openly licensed media that gives you free access to over 600 million image and audio files. This guide will show you how to add Openverse images to your site.

Video overview

Insert a free image from Openverse

While editing a page or post on your site, you can add free images from Openverse by taking the following steps:

  1. Edit any page or post in the WordPress editor.
  2. Add any block that uses images, such as the Image block, the Gallery block, or the Cover block.
  3. Click the “Select Image” option.
  4. Select “Openverse”:
Select Image has been clicked, revealing the Openverse option.
  1. Type your search term into the box at the top to browse available images.
  2. To choose an image, click on it and then click the Select button. If you’re creating a gallery, you can select multiple images at once:
The user has searched for oven, and multiple images featuring ovens are shown in the results.

Any images you select are added to your site’s Media and will count against your site’s storage capacity.

Add Openverse images to media

You can access the same free images from Openverse via your site’s Media by following these steps:

  1. Visit your site’s dashboard.
  2. Navigate to Media → Import Media.
The "Media" dashboard item expanded and "Import Media" highlighted.
  1. Click the “Import now” link under the “Openverse” section.
An arrow points to the "Import now" link under Openverse.
  1. Add a term to the search box. Select as many photos as you want and click the “Import media” button:
A search for "galaxies" with 5 images selected and a button labeled "Import 5 media."

Any images you select are added to your site’s Media and will count against your site’s storage capacity.

Working with images

All Openverse content is under a Creative Commons license or is in the public domain, depending on the image.

The photographer’s credit is automatically added to the caption of each image. If an image is under a Creative Commons CC0 license, it’s not necessary to keep this credit on your site. Other Creative Commons licenses require this credit line to be maintained.

The caption below an image showing the Creative Commons CC-0 license.

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