What is a broken image checker?

It loads a page, finds every image the markup references, and requests each file to see whether the server actually returns it. Anything that answers with an error status, times out or returns something that is not an image is reported as broken.

Why does the check run on your server instead of my browser?

A browser cannot read another site's HTML because of the same origin policy, and it cannot see the status code of a cross origin image either. Fetching the page server side removes both limits, so the report is based on real response codes.

Does it check images loaded by JavaScript?

It checks what the server sends in the HTML, including common lazy loading attributes such as data-src and data-srcset. Images injected purely by client side script after render are not visible to this kind of scan.

Are CSS background images included?

Yes. URLs inside inline style attributes and inside style blocks in the page are extracted and checked. Backgrounds declared in external stylesheets are not fetched, since those files can be enormous and mostly unrelated to the page.

Why does an image show 403 when it opens fine for me?

Hotlink protection and signed CDN URLs often serve the file to a browser with the right referrer or cookie and refuse everything else. If the image loads normally on your own page, a 403 here usually means the host is filtering rather than that the file is missing.

What is a soft 404 image?

A server that answers 200 OK but returns an HTML error page instead of the image file. The status looks healthy in a log, yet the browser still shows a broken icon, so the content type is checked as well as the code.

How many images does one scan cover?

Up to 200 unique image URLs per page, requested eight at a time with a nine second timeout each. Pages with more than that are reported as truncated so you know the list is partial.

Do broken images hurt SEO?

Indirectly. Google will not index an image it cannot fetch, so you lose image search traffic, and a page full of missing media raises bounce rate and hurts perceived quality. There is no direct ranking penalty for a 404 image.

Why does the tool report file size?

Because the same scan already knows it. An image that loads but weighs several megabytes delays Largest Contentful Paint, which is a Core Web Vitals metric, so it is worth seeing next to the failures.

Can I check a page behind a login?

No. The scan makes an anonymous request, so pages that require a session return the login page instead. Test staging content on a publicly reachable preview URL, or on Grigora where the site preview is a real public address.

Free Broken Image Checker

Enter a page URL and see which images fail to load. The scan finds every img src, every srcset candidate and every CSS background image, requests each file, and reports the status code, the alt text and the file size.

Free, no signup Real status codes Backgrounds included

Check a page for broken images

Any public page. Login protected pages return the login screen, so they cannot be scanned.

Images fixed? Keep them that way

Broken images are usually a hosting problem, not a content problem.

Most missing images come from media hotlinked to a service that changed its URLs, or from a migration that rewrote every upload path. Grigora serves your images from your own domain alongside the site, the newsletter and the store, so paths stay stable when the design changes.

Start free See the builder

How to find broken images on a page

Four steps from URL to a clean page.

Paste the page URL

Any public http or https page. The scan reads the HTML the server sends, so no login is possible.

Run the check

Every image reference is resolved to an absolute URL and requested, eight at a time.

Filter to broken only

Hide the healthy images and work through the failures and warnings.

Fix and re-run

Re-upload, correct the path or add a redirect, then scan the page again to confirm.

How to find broken images, step by step

Real screenshots of the tool, taken while scanning a page with 131 images.

1
Enter the page URL
The page is fetched on the server, so you can check any public URL without installing anything or signing in.
2
Point it at a real page
Any published page works, including a blog post or a category listing carrying dozens of images.
3
See every image it requested
Each image is requested on its own and reported with a status code, its alt text and its file size, so a slow 1 MB image is as visible as a 404.

When to run an image check

Six moments a missing image costs you something.

After a site migration

New platforms rewrite media paths. Old posts keep pointing at URLs that no longer exist.

Before a launch

A hero image that 404s on launch day is the first thing every visitor sees.

Auditing old blog posts

Images hotlinked from other sites disappear quietly, years after publishing.

Product pages that look empty

A missing product photo reads as an out of stock or untrustworthy listing.

Chasing a slow page

The scan reports file size, so the 3 MB banner nobody compressed shows up too.

Checking alt text coverage

Missing alt attributes are listed alongside the status of each file.

Fixing broken images by platform

Where the missing file usually went.

WordPress

Broken images usually follow a media library move or a domain change.
Run a search and replace on the old upload URL in post content.
Re-scan the page here to confirm nothing is left.

Shopify

Product images live on the Shopify CDN with a version query string.
Re-upload the asset instead of editing the URL by hand.
Check the theme settings for hard coded banner paths.

Webflow

Check the Assets panel for files deleted while still in use.
Background images set in the Style panel are the ones most often missed.
Publish, then scan the live URL rather than the editor.

Grigora

Open the page in the editor and re-link the image block.
Images are served from your own domain, so paths survive a redesign.
Publish and re-run this check on the live URL.

Grigora vs. other image checkers

Side by side.

Capability	Grigora	Browser extensions	Crawler suites	Site audit tools
Checks CSS background images	Yes	Rarely	No	No
Checks srcset candidates	Every candidate	Sometimes	No	No
Reports file size	Yes	No	Yes	Yes
Shows alt text alongside	Yes	No	No	Separate report
Signup required	No	No	Yes	Yes
Page limit	One page, no cap on runs	Capped free tier	Crawl credits	Plan based

Common causes and how to fix them

Eight reasons an image stops rendering.

404 Not Found

Cause: The file was renamed, moved or deleted, but the page still points at the old path.

Fix: Re-upload to the original path or add a redirect. Renaming media is the most common cause after a redesign.

403 Forbidden

Cause: The file exists but the host refuses the request, usually hotlink protection or a signed URL that expired.

Fix: Host the image yourself, or allow your own domain in the referrer rules of the CDN.

Relative path broken on inner pages

Cause: A src like images/photo.jpg resolves differently on /blog/post/ than on the homepage.

Fix: Use root relative paths starting with a slash, or absolute URLs.

HTTP image on an HTTPS page

Cause: Mixed content. The file exists, but browsers block it before it loads.

Fix: Update the src to https. Browsers do not show a warning, they just show nothing.

Returns HTML instead of an image

Cause: A soft 404. The server answers 200 with an error page rather than the file.

Fix: Check the content type. A 200 with text/html is still a missing image to the browser.

Zero byte file

Cause: An upload was interrupted, so the file exists with no data in it.

Fix: Re-upload the original. The status code looks healthy, which is why this one hides for months.

Lazy loaded image never resolves

Cause: The real file sits in data-src and the script that swaps it in fails.

Fix: Keep a valid src as the fallback so the image survives a script error.

Image over 1 MB

Cause: An unoptimised export straight from a camera or design tool.

Fix: Resize to the displayed dimensions and export as WebP. This is a speed problem, not a broken one.

What one scan covers

The limits this checker works within, and why they exist.

200

Unique image URLs checked per scan

Requests running in parallel, so large pages finish quickly

Timeout per image before it counts as unreachable

1 MB

Size above which an image is flagged as a speed problem

Frequently asked questions

Ten answers about checking images.

Related free tools

Other utilities that pair with the Broken Image Checker.

Host the images on the site you own

Website, media, newsletter and store in one place, starting free.

Start building free