Remove Photos of Your House From Zillow and Redfin

To remove photos of your house from Zillow, Redfin or Realtor.com, you usually claim the home on each site as its current owner and use the hide or remove photos setting, then ask the listing agent or brokerage to deal with the MLS, the database the photos came from. Redfin says listing photos belong to the listing agent or the photographer, not the homeowner.

This guide is written for the US, where listing photos travel from an agent to a multiple listing service (MLS) and then to portals. Rules differ by MLS, by state and by site, and every policy below is described as of the help page we read, so check the page again before you act. We do not describe rules outside the US.

The short version

Start with the portals: claim the home and hide or remove photos on Zillow and Redfin, and request removal on Realtor.com. This works for the current owner only.
Then go to the listing agent or brokerage. The MLS holds the source, and some MLSs will not delete photos from a closed listing at all.
Copyright usually sits with the photographer or agent, so a copyright notice is a route only if you shot the photos yourself.
Once a page has changed, ask the search engine to refresh it. Cached copies and thumbnails can outlast the page.
Redfin says its property data comes from public records and that it does not remove property pages. Photos are the part you can usually reduce.

Who controls the photos of a home after a sale or rental

The people who control listing photos are the listing agent, the photographer they hired and the MLS, not the home's owner or the portal. A portal displays photos it received, and its tools change only what that site shows.

Redfin's photos help page says property photos are copyrighted and belong to the listing agent or photographer, and that anyone who wants copies of the home's photos should contact the previous listing agent. A National Association of Realtors (NAR) article from May 2022, archived with a warning that it may not be current, cites realtor.com for the point that only licensed agents and brokers who pay MLS dues can post or remove listings. It adds that listings remain visible until the listing agent closes them out.

That gives four layers, and one photo can sit in all four:

The MLS record, where the agent uploaded it.
Feeds from the MLS to brokerage websites and portals.
Copies that portals and aggregators kept after the listing closed.
Search results, thumbnails and cached pages that point to any of the above.

A photo gone from Zillow can remain in the MLS archive and on a brokerage site. Find out which layer holds the photo before you write to anyone.

Remove photos of your house from Zillow, Redfin and Realtor.com

Each portal has an owner tool, and each needs you to claim the home or show proof of ownership first. The photo tools change photos, not the property page.

Zillow. Zillow's help center says to claim your home, open Owner View and use the Edit Facts icon. There you can click a photo and choose Remove Photo, use Delete all photos, or tick the box to hide photos displayed on your home's Zillow page, then save. Two limits appear on the same pages. For some off-market homes the Edit Facts option may be unavailable. For some homes marked sold, Edit Facts lets you hide all but the primary photo. If the tools fail, Zillow says to submit a ticket to Customer Support.

Redfin. Redfin's article on removing photos from a sold home gives a web-only route: log in, open My homes, choose the home, click Edit Photos, check Hide listing photos and confirm. It is not available in the mobile app. Redfin's Photos FAQ adds that the first image, the hero shot, still appears after you hide the listing photos, and that removing it takes a message to Customer Support. It also says a sold home's photos stay archived in the MLS, so feeds keep including them unless they are hidden or removed on the MLS side. Once the listing photos are hidden, the sold-home page says a Google Street View image of the home appears instead, and it links to Google's page on blurring that imagery. We did not read Google's Street View policy, so check what a blur request does before you file.

Realtor.com. We could not read Realtor.com's own help page for this guide, so this comes from a help page of SmartMLS, a Connecticut MLS, that describes the process. It says the new homeowner of a property whose listing has a permanent off-market status (Closed, Expired or Canceled) can contact Realtor.com Customer Care with documents showing their name and the property address. The documents it accepts include a deed, title, recent tax bill or public record URL, and utility bills are not accepted. It also says you can claim the property on Realtor.com and ask for removal during the claim. Check Realtor.com's own page before relying on this.

Which route fits your situation

Choose the route by your relationship to the home and by where the photo sits.

Your situation	Route	What it removes	Limit
You own the home now, listing closed	Claim and hide or remove on each portal	Photos on that portal	Primary photo may stay; MLS and other sites unchanged
You sold the home or rented it	Write to the listing agent and brokerage; ask the new owner to claim	Possibly MLS status and feeds	Some MLSs keep closed records permanent
Photos are on a brokerage site	Ask the brokerage that runs it	That site's copy	Each site decides for itself
You took the photos yourself	Copyright notice to the site and search engine	Copies you hold the rights to	False claims carry liability
Page changed, result remains	Search engine refresh request	Stale thumbnail or snippet	Works only after the source changed
You want the address or sale price gone	None of these	Nothing	Property data and pages stay

The agent, brokerage and MLS route

The MLS record is the source, so the listing agent and brokerage are the people who can ask for it to change, and what the MLS does varies. Two published MLS policies show the range, and neither is a national rule.

SmartMLS (Connecticut) says that once a listing is Closed, Expired or Canceled, its photos become permanent and no one, including its own staff, can remove them. It adds that each outside site sets its own policy: some remove all photos, some keep the primary photo and some keep everything.

Bay East (a California MLS) says a request to change photos on a Sold listing must come from the listing agent or listing broker and goes to the MLS for review. It says it keeps photos for at least three years under California law, so they cannot be deleted, but that agents can mark photos on active, pending or hold listings as Private, which keeps them in the MLS and excludes them from IDX and other third-party feeds.

RISMedia, reporting in September 2026, describes the same patchwork. It says many regional MLSs have policies on hiding interior photos from public feeds after a sale, and a broker it quotes says the full archive usually stays viewable inside the MLS database to subscribing brokers. It says Garden State MLS automatically removes all listing photos or leaves one exterior image after a sale, and that in connectMLS listing photos cannot be removed, though replacing one is an acceptable change. Where an MLS lacks a clear policy, it says the listing broker or agent must remove images from MLS feeds if the new homeowner asks. It also reports a New Jersey bill, A5422, introduced in the State Assembly that month. The bill would have the MLS remove the images within 30 days of receiving a removal request form back from the homebuyer. A bill that has only been introduced is not a rule you can invoke.

What to ask the agent for

Ask in writing: that the sold listing be set to private or non-syndicated status if the MLS allows it, and that the agent contact the portals and brokerage sites that still show the photos. Give the MLS name and the address.

The San Francisco Association of Realtors help page adds a practical detail from one local association: third-party sites can take up to 24 hours to reflect an MLS change, and many stop refreshing once a listing shows as closed, so photos made private after closing can stay up. It says the agent is responsible for contacting those sites. If the agent refuses, you are back to the portal tools and the copyright route.

When you own the copyright: a takedown notice

A copyright notice works only when you own the copyright in the photo or act for the person who does. Owning the house does not make you the owner of the photograph of it. This section is information, not legal advice, and it describes US law; your own counsel decides.

The US Copyright Office explains in its circular on works made for hire that the author of a work is ordinarily the person who created it. A hiring party counts as author only for a work made for hire: an employee's work within regular duties, or a commissioned work that falls within listed categories and is covered by a signed written agreement saying so. A homeowner who took the photos for a for-sale-by-owner advertisement is likely the author. A homeowner whose agent's photographer shot the interior is usually not, and a polite request to the photographer or agent is then simpler than any legal route.

If you own the rights, the US notice-and-takedown process applies. Under 17 U.S.C. section 512, a notice under (c)(3)(A) is a written communication to the service provider's designated agent that includes a signature, identification of the copyrighted work, identification of the material with enough detail to locate it, your contact information, a good faith statement that the use is not authorized, and a statement under penalty of perjury that the information is accurate and that you are authorized to act for the owner. Section 512(f) makes anyone who knowingly materially misrepresents that material is infringing liable for damages, including costs and attorneys' fees.

Google's copyright form asks whether you are the copyright owner or authorized to act for the owner, and says to submit a separate report for each Google product where the content appears.

Taking the photos out of search results

A search result is a second layer that you can change only after the page itself has changed. Search engines hold a copy of the image and the page description.

Google's help page on outdated content says that when content has been removed from a site but still shows in results, the page description or cache might be outdated, and that its Request refresh tool is for this case. For an image, you copy the link address from the thumbnail in Google Images, choose Request refresh, then New request and Image, and paste the link.

Two limits matter. The refresh tool does not remove a photo that is still live on the page. And Google's help page on removing personal information lists an address, phone number or email, and does not mention photos of a home. Google also says it can only remove things from Google Search results, so the hosting site stays a separate request.

What stays online: address, sale history and public records

The photo tools do not touch the address or sale history of a home. Redfin's help article on removing a home says it does not remove property pages and that its property data is sourced from public records collected by third-party providers, typically through county offices. Errors in price history or public records can be reported through a support request, and Redfin asks for proof of ownership such as a deed, tax record or assessment report. The Zillow help pages we read describe photo controls for a claimed home and say nothing about removing the address or sale history.

If the aim is to keep strangers from seeing inside the home, photos are the right target. Keeping your address from being found is a different problem with different routes.

What interior photos reveal and how to reduce the risk

Interior photos show more than furnishings. A set of images can show the floor plan, where the entry points are, what the alarm panel looks like and which rooms are used. That is reasoning, not a crime statistic.

NAR's consumer guide on privacy and safety when selling gives the agent-side advice. It says to put away family photos, visible calendars, mail, computer logins, Wi-Fi passwords and sensitive documents before photos are taken. It notes that photos, video or scans may also be taken by appraisers, property data collectors, home inspectors and contractors, that the listing and its imagery are shared on the MLS and then on brokerage websites and portals, and that sellers should avoid sharing personal information in the event of a breach.

Two practical steps follow. If you are the new owner, treat old photos as a reason to change locks and review any alarm setup, as after any sale. And do not post screenshots of the photos publicly while you ask for removal.

Rental photos usually come from the landlord, a property manager or a rental tool. Redfin says its rental photos from the MLS or third parties need a Customer Support request, and that photos uploaded through Redfin Rental Tools can be removed from the Rental Dashboard. A former tenant should write first to whoever supplied the photos.

Removing house photos outside the US

Outside the US, ask whoever supplied the photos first, then the portal, and where you own the photograph look for a copyright route in your country. A data protection or privacy law may offer a further route where the images reveal personal information, and the regulator's own guidance is the place to read it. We do not describe any country's rights or deadlines, because we did not read those sources for this guide.

A realistic timeline

Most of the delay is waiting for people and crawlers. The steps below describe what we usually see, not a promise, and an MLS that keeps its records permanent can stop the process at step three.

Typical order and timing for removing house photos

Day 1: collect proof and list the pagesGather a deed, tax bill or similar proof of ownership. Save the address of every page that shows the photos.
Days 1 to 7: claim and hide on each portalClaim the home on Zillow, Redfin and Realtor.com and use the hide or remove tools. Ownership checks can take a few days, and a support ticket usually takes longer.
Days 3 to 14: write to the agent and brokerageAsk for private or non-syndicated status and for outreach to sites that still show the photos. Follow up once.
Days 7 to 21: check the portals againOne association says third-party sites can take up to 24 hours to reflect an MLS change, but many stop refreshing closed listings, so repeat any request that did not hold.
Weeks 2 to 6: ask the search engine to refreshWhen the live pages have changed, file a refresh request for each page and image. Results usually update after the next crawl.
Month 2 onward: handle what is leftLook for copies on brokerage and aggregator sites. Use a copyright notice only if you own the photos, or ask the photographer.

SmartMLS notes that photos that spread to secondary or tertiary sites can be very hard to trace. Plan for weeks or months, and for some copies that stay.

The next step if the photos are still online

Start with proof and a list of every page that shows the photos, then claim the home on the three portals and message the listing agent.

If this is happening to you now

If interior photos of your home are circulating beyond listing sites, or your address is tied to a safety concern, a private audit shows which copies exist and which route fits each. Reputation Partners will tell you plainly what is removable and what is not. Start with the private audit.

Questions people ask

Can I make Zillow delete the photos of a house I used to own?

Zillow's help pages describe photo controls that start with claiming ownership of the home's page, so they are written for the current owner. Your practical route is the listing agent, who supplied the photos, or the new owner, who can claim the home and hide them. A Customer Support ticket is the fallback Zillow names when the photo tools fail.

Can I get the address or sale price taken off?

Not through the photo tools. Redfin says it does not remove property pages and that its data comes from public records, typically through county offices. If you find an error in price history, you can report it with proof of ownership such as a deed or tax record. A genuine sale stays on record, so aim to reduce the photos, not the listing fact.

Should I send a DMCA notice about photos in my old listing?

Only if you own the copyright, for example because you took the photos yourself. Under the US notice-and-takedown law, 17 U.S.C. section 512, the notice must state under penalty of perjury that you are authorized to act for the owner, and a knowing material misrepresentation carries liability for damages. If an agent's photographer shot them, ask the photographer or agent instead.

How long does it take to remove house photos from search results?

After the live page changes, a search engine refresh request usually updates results at the next crawl, which in our experience can take days to weeks. Redfin's help page says it can take time for Google and Bing to re-pull the information after a photo is removed. Copies on other sites each need their own request and may take longer.