Image alt text checker
Find images with no alt attribute, and tell them apart from decorative ones.
Free and no signup. This one fetches the URL from our server; nothing about it is stored.
This one fetches the page from our server, so unlike the rest of these tools the URL does leave your browser. Nothing about it is stored.
About this tool
The distinction that matters is not "has alt text" but the difference between an empty alt and a missing one. An empty alt="" tells a screen reader to skip a decorative image, which is correct and helpful. A missing attribute makes it read the filename aloud, which is neither.
- Images are grouped three ways: described, decorative with an empty alt, and missing the attribute. Only the third group is a fault.
- Alt text should say what the image conveys, not what it depicts. "Revenue tripled after launch" beats "line chart".
- Do not start with "image of". A screen reader already announces that it is an image, so the words are wasted.
- This reads the HTML as served. Images added by JavaScript after load are not counted, and neither are they seen by a crawler.
Questions
- Should decorative images have alt text?
- They should have alt="" — an empty attribute, present. That tells a screen reader to skip it. Omitting the attribute makes it read the filename instead.
- Does alt text help SEO?
- It is how Google understands an image, so it matters for image search. Its larger purpose is accessibility, and writing it for a person produces better text than writing it for a crawler.
- How long should alt text be?
- A sentence. If an image genuinely needs a paragraph, that content belongs in the page text where everyone can read it.