How to remove photos and videos from Yandex

What Yandex can do, and what only the site can

Yandex doesn’t delete files from other people’s sites. It can stop showing a link in Search and in Images. The file itself stays online until the site owner or the host takes it down.

So start at the source: report it to the site and its host. Use the Yandex forms so people can’t find the leak by your name or username while the source is silent, and to clean up search results after the page is gone.

Which form to use

Yandex has several forms, and each one has its own grounds. Pick the one that fits your case:

• Intimate photos or videos posted without consent, real or fake: the explicit content form.
• The page with the leak is already gone, but the link, a cached copy or an image is still in results: the deleted pages form or the Images form.
• Information about you is unlawful, inaccurate or out of date: a right to be forgotten request.
• You own the copyright and the site doesn’t respond: a copyright complaint.

Intimate photos and videos without consent

Yandex has a dedicated form for this, called “Report explicit content published without my consent”. It covers real photos and videos as well as fakes made with AI.

In the form you confirm three things: the material shows you, publishing it harms you, and you didn’t consent to it. Add the page links and the searches that bring them up: your name, username or phone number.

Yandex hides these links for searches that point to you. For other searches the page may still show up, and it stays on the site either way. Yandex doesn’t say how long a review takes.

The page is gone, but it’s still in results

Once a site removes the leak, Yandex drops the link on its own over time. There are two ways to speed this up.

• The deleted pages form. Use it for a page that no longer exists or for an outdated cached copy. One request can list several links for the same search. Yandex says updating results usually takes a few days.
• The page removal tool in Yandex Webmaster. You don’t need to own the site to use it. Enter links one at a time. A request is accepted only if the page returns a 404, 403 or 410 error or is blocked from indexing. Otherwise the status reads “Rejected”. Once the status changes to “In progress”, the page leaves the results within a day.

Images are handled separately. A deleted image drops out of Yandex Images on its own after a while. You can speed this up with the form in the Images help pages.

The right to be forgotten

If searching your name brings up information about you that is spread unlawfully, inaccurate or no longer relevant, you can file a request under Article 10.3 of Russia’s Federal Law 149-FZ. Because it comes from the law, Yandex has a deadline to answer.

• The request needs your full name, passport details, contact details, the information itself, the page link, your grounds and consent to processing your personal data.
• Yandex may ask you once to clarify. You have 10 working days to reply.
• Yandex has 10 working days to handle the request. In that time it either stops showing the links or sends a reasoned refusal.
• You can challenge a refusal in a Russian court.

Links are hidden only for searches with your first or last name. The source page stays online.

If you own the copyright

On copyright, Yandex says plainly that search can’t remove content from other people’s sites. Report it to the site and its host. Once the page is gone, the link drops out of search on its own after a while.

If you need to contact Yandex directly, its general address for complaints is abuse@yandex.ru. Say who you are, give the exact links and the right that was violated, and sign the complaint. If someone writes on your behalf, attach a power of attorney.

What to have ready

• Direct links to the pages and to the images themselves.
• The searches that bring up the leak: your name, username, phone number.
• Screenshots of the results with the date and time.
• For the right to be forgotten: your passport details.

Keep your request numbers and the replies from Yandex. If a link comes back, file the form again and mention your earlier request.