The first hour feels like the end of your life and it is not. If your nudes leaked, there is a specific, boring, effective sequence of things to do, and doing them in order matters more than doing them fast. This page is for adults whose photos were shared without their consent. It will not tell you what you should have done differently, because that is useless and also not true. Start at the top of the list and work down. The first step is the one that helps most, and it is the one people skip.
The order
- Document before you touch anything. Do not report, delete or message anyone first. Capture full URLs with the address bar visible in the screenshot, usernames, post dates and any thread context. Copy the URLs into a text file as well, because a picture of a link cannot be clicked or pasted into a form. One dated folder, everything in it.
- Report on the platform using the non-consensual imagery flow. Not the generic report button. Nearly every large site has a dedicated route for intimate images shared without consent, usually under safety or privacy rather than "report post". It is a different queue, reviewed differently, and it moves much faster.
- Submit hashes to StopNCII.org. Free, adults only, worldwide. Details below, because almost nobody explains it properly.
- File a Google Search removal request. Highest value per hour of anything on this list.
- Send takedown notices to hosts. The site's abuse or DMCA contact, and if the site ignores you, its host.
- Search for yourself on a schedule. Fixed times, not compulsively.
- Lock the account or device the leak came from. Password change, sessions revoked, two-factor on, and work out whether it was an account, a device or a person.
- Call a free human support line. The Cyber Civil Rights Initiative crisis line on 844-878-2274 in the US, the Revenge Porn Helpline in the UK, eSafety in Australia. They do this every day and they are free.
- Decide who you tell, on your timing. Nobody else gets to set that schedule.
Getting it out of Google
Search removal is the step with the best return, because content that exists but cannot be found by your name is functionally most of the way gone. Almost all discovery happens through search, not through people stumbling across a forum.
You can report straight from an image result: the three-dot menu on the result, then remove result, then the option for a sexual image of you. You can also submit multiple images in a single form rather than one at a time. While you are there, opt into proactive filtering so Google suppresses further explicit results about you as they appear, and use the "Results about you" hub to track what has been submitted and what has been actioned.
Two things worth knowing. When Google removes an image, its systems also look for duplicates of that image rather than only the exact URL you reported. And sites that accumulate a high volume of removals get demoted in ranking, which quietly does damage to the worst hosts over time. Removal from search does not delete anything from the site itself, so it runs alongside the takedown notices rather than replacing them.
StopNCII, explained properly
This is the most misunderstood tool in the whole process, usually because people assume it means uploading their nudes to a stranger's website. It does not.
The hash is computed locally, in your browser. PDQ or PhotoDNA for stills, MD5 for video. The file never leaves your device. What gets sent is a fingerprint, a string of numbers that cannot be turned back into the image. Partner platforms compare that fingerprint against uploads and block matches.
It is free, worldwide, adults only, up to 20 hashes per submission. You get a case number and a PIN so you can check status or withdraw the case later. AI-generated and deepfaked images of you qualify, which matters more every year. Participating platforms include Facebook, Instagram, Threads, Microsoft, TikTok, Reddit, Snapchat, X, Bluesky, OnlyFans, Pornhub, xVideos, RedGIFs, FetLife and Patreon.
Now the limits, which nobody writes down. It only reaches participating platforms. It does nothing about a private forum, a Telegram channel or a Discord server, and it is not a search engine, so it will not tell you where your images are. Most importantly: hashes break on edits. A crop, a filter, a colour shift, a clip of a video, a re-encode, and the fingerprint no longer matches. Each variant you know about needs its own submission. It is preventative more than curative, a wall against re-upload rather than a broom, and it is still one of the highest-leverage twenty minutes you will spend.
What is actually achievable
Full removal from the internet is not achievable, and anyone promising it is selling something. That sounds bleak until you look at what is achievable, which is a great deal:
- Removal from the platforms people actually use.
- Removal from search results, where nearly all discovery happens.
- Re-upload blocking on the largest sites through hashing.
- Demotion of the sites that keep hosting it.
The other thing worth knowing early: most leaks do not go viral. They circulate in a few places, get seen by fewer people than you are imagining, and stall. The mental image of it spreading everywhere is a worst case, not the normal case.
Treat this as maintenance rather than a one-time fix. Check on a schedule, submit new hashes when a variant turns up, resubmit search removals for new URLs. The workload drops sharply after the first fortnight.
Getting through the first week
Plainly, because this part decides how the rest goes.
The catastrophe you are picturing is a prediction, not a fact, and predictions made in the first few hours are the worst ones you will ever make. Your brain is running the most expensive possible scenario because that is what it does under threat.
Do the documentation step. It is concrete, it takes an hour, and it gives the panic something to hold. People who start with a task do better than people who start with a search bar.
You did nothing wrong by making the picture. Sending an image to someone you chose is an ordinary adult thing. The person who shared it broke the only rule that mattered, which is share what is yours to share, and that is the rule we enforce in our rooms too: posting a partner's, an ex's, or anyone else's photos without consent is ban-worthy.
Tell one person today. Not everyone, one. Isolation is exactly the leverage anyone extorting you is counting on, and if there is an active threat attached to this, the sextortion response steps are the ones to follow alongside this page.
Do not doomscroll your own name. Set a fixed check schedule, once a day, then once a week, and keep to it. Do not make irreversible decisions this week: no quitting, no moving, no deleting every account you own, no confronting anyone. Deactivating something is reversible, deleting it usually is not.
And if you are having thoughts of harming yourself, that is the emergency, not the photos. Call a local crisis line or 988 in the US, or tell one person right now, tonight. People come out the other side of this constantly, and the ones who do are not the ones who handled it perfectly.
When you are ready to be online again
Not yet, and not as a lesson. But at some point you will want to talk to people again, and there are ways to do it that leave nothing to lose. Censoring a photo covers cropping the identifying details out and stripping the metadata, all inside your browser with no upload. Anonymous nudes and sexting safety cover keeping a chat identity in a separate box from your real one, and spotting a catfish or bot covers who to walk away from early. Anonymous sexting works perfectly well as text alone, which is what most people here are doing anyway. Our privacy policy sets out what we keep and why.