How can I prevent people from right clicking and saving/copying my images on my website?

I'm uploading images that I dont want people ripping from my webpage, or inspect element.

is there anyway I can potentially hide the right click or get rid of both the right click and encrypt the link from the inspect element.

i'm using the mark novo template.

Use this guide.

Disabling right-clicks reduces the usability of your website. It can make users very frustrated and leave the site. If you disable it, users cannot right click to:

• Open a link in a new tab
• Lookup a word
• Translate a word/phrase
• Read aloud a section of text

And bear in mind that it does nothing to prevent copying of images. It will still be possible for anyone to download images or text from the website. 
For more information, see Preventing visitors from downloading your images and audio. This Squarespace guide covers several other approaches you can take to protect your images and discourage unlawful copying.

Site URL: https://www.angelamaritz.com/

Hi, I am an artist (I paint) and would prefer that people cant right click and save/copy images on my website. Is this possible? I understand they can still take a screenshot.

Thanks 

Here are some good resources, but it will only prevent saving by right-clicking, there are many other ways to download image that are online. The best thing you can do is scale down your images and decrease the quality (to just within acceptable levels for web) and add copyright info to the metadata. It's a tricky problem for artists and creators online, sadly without a great solution. Good luck!

https://support.squarespace.com/hc/en-us/articles/206542457-Preventing-visitors-from-downloading-your-images-videos-and-audio

Great guide @tuanphan. Just making sure the right hand click disable script code still lets Google index the websites?

Thanks 🙂

On 11/15/2022 at 4:31 PM, catalienne said:

Great guide @tuanphan. Just making sure the right hand click disable script code still lets Google index the websites?

Thanks 🙂

I'm not sure, but quite a few people use that code and haven't seen anyone mention indexing, you're the first to mention it.

On 11/15/2022 at 9:31 AM, catalienne said:

Just making sure the right hand click disable script code still lets Google index the websites?

It will not affect indexing of the website but, as I explained above, it will reduce the usability of your website and potentially frustrate genuine visitors.

Hello, I’m undecided about Squarespace over one issue: The lack of a function to disable right-click downloading of photos. Apparently, this is so much more straightforward with Wix. But for many other reasons, I prefer Squarespace.

Squarespace tells me that if people want to steal images, they’ll do it anyway, e.g., screenshots, so there’s no reason to disable right-click downloads. I have three responses to this:

(1) Do you lock your door when you go out? Because I found (from experience) that locking the door doesn’t deter a determined burglar. But locked doors do deter opportunists.

(2) Copyright notifications when trying to right-click on images on other platforms are a good reminder that, while you can go ahead and make a screenshot, this image doesn’t belong to you. Maybe I’m an optimist, but I think that good ethical practices in photography should be promoted in any way possible, rather than just assuming that there’s no point (and making it easy to download anything and everything).

(3) Screenshots are usually lower resolution. So, you might think you’re stealing an iPhone 10 but you’re actually getting the iPhone 5.

I’ve seen a few discussions on this forum about disabling right-click downloads, but it seems complicated, because I know nothing about code, and because people have found that disabling right-click downloads on a desktop does not necessarily disable it on a mobile phone. Also, things change, and many of the discussions on this forum are many months old now.

Please would anyone be willing to talk me through the process, with the current version of Squarespace (7.1, I believe?).

Thanks in advance.

I use the following code, inserted under Setting->Advanced->Code Injection in the Header section to prevent users of my SS 7.0 website from downloading my images and right-clicking to save:

<HTML>
 <HEAD></HEAD>
 <BODY on contextmenu="return false;" onselectstart="return false;" ondragstart="return false;">
 </BODY>
</HTML>

<script>
document.oncontextmenu = function(e){
   var target = (typeof e !="undefined")? e.target: event.srcElement
   if (target.tagName == "IMG" || (target.tagName == 'A' && target.firstChild.tagName == 'IMG'))
       return false
}
</script>

This code works as intended; however, I have found that it also screws up the editor, e.g., I cannot mouse drag over text to highlight while editing, nor copy/paste, nor see my cursor occasionally. If I delete that code, editing returns to normal, and reinsertion causes those problems to reappear. My work around at the moment is to do exactly that: delete, edit, reinsert the code. Yes, it's kludgy, but that's the best I have.

I'd like to add code that checks to see if I am logged in (as the website owner). If true,  the script would be disabled permitting me to edit without problems. If false, ie., any other users views my pages, their ability to use context menus and right-click saves would be disabled. The key is how to add code to ID the owner as the one making the edits and then stop the code from functioning while the owner is editing.

I have no experience with coding, and picked up the aforementioned code from a user on this forum. So, if anyone has any suggestions on how to modify this code so I can retain the functionality (prevent download, right-click and swipe to desktop saving), but at the same time permit my editing, please post a reply.

Thank you in advance for your help,

Bob

Bump...bump

Still hoping for some help.

Hello, I've still not worked out how to prevent right-click downloads. Wix, Pixpa, and Format make this so easy. For other reasons I prefer Squarespace, but for this reason, I cannot commit to Squarespace. Underwhelmed by Squarespace's lack of interest in this matter, and I wish those who managed to solve this problem after checking on this forum would share their knowledge with the forum...  😞 

2 hours ago, SW1 said:

Hello, I've still not worked out how to prevent right-click downloads. Wix, Pixpa, and Format make this so easy. For other reasons I prefer Squarespace, but for this reason, I cannot commit to Squarespace. Underwhelmed by Squarespace's lack of interest in this matter, and I wish those who managed to solve this problem after checking on this forum would share their knowledge with the forum...  😞 

Have you tried the solution from tuanphan's post: this guide.

Make sure that you are clear about the notice from paul:

Disabling the right click will not prevent dragging and dropping images to the desktop. That takes another piece of code with its own set of undesirable results. The best preventative action to prevent stealing your images is to watermark them (which can be removed without too much trouble with good editing software. )  Just making them smaller is not foolproof. I can take a 365 kb thumbnail and enlarge it (as big as I want) with an image resizer program that I use, making it totally acceptable to online printing services.

So in essence, you only discourage, as Paul said, honest visitors from having a full viewing experience on your site, those who want your images bad enough and have the know-how can still be able to get them and use them how they want. 

This is the best guide to discouraging image theft that I have read. Notice I said discourage theft not totally prevent it. 

https://www.pixsy.com/academy/image-owner/protect-images-online/

Another frustrated freelance photographer stunned by Squarespace's bull-headed POV on this.

Someone else said it and it's true: You still lock your doors even though houses get broken into.

Why Squarespace seems hellbent on making it as easy as possible for thieves when they market themselves to creators is mind boggling.

And while my site is small and Squarespace won't notice, I am no resigned to the fact that Squarespace does NOT have creators best interests at heart and I will need to rebuild my site with a competitor that gets it. It's just unfathomable that they're so dense to what a fundamental issue this is to its users. Moronic. Truly stupid.  They simply do not care.

Good luck to anyone who continues to use Squarespace. Whatever you create, Squarespace is at the ready to stand guard and make sure that door stays wide open. So dumb.

Peace.

How do I prevent visitors from 'save as' images from my blog posts?

-My blog is being used to showcase a page-by-page comic so it's crucial to prevent the pages from being stolen or reused.

You cannot do it. You can only make image theft harder to do. You can disable right-click click but that will not stop folks from taking your images if they want one hard enough. There is always screen snipping and other methods. The best protection is to watermark images you want to protect. There is some third party gallery software that has extra protection such as this:

https://wp-modula.com/protect-images-website-theft/

Is it possible to have a watermark added at the point of saving, so that my work can be viewed without watermarks on my site?

Alternatively, can a low res thumbnail be substituted for the main image at the point of saving?

I'm curious because my image work needs to be seen by potential clients so I don't want watermarked or low res images on my site. Most of my work would be of no interest to most people in terms of "stealing" it. Who would want an image of a shampoo bottle or a pizza in any case? But there are some items, comic strip stuff, film posters, record sleeves, etc. that might be a bit more desirable.

Yes, we all know you can't "stop" image theft but can make it harder. I know how to go into the source code & find an image but most people don't & that extra level would be good enough.

12 minutes ago, Snowdog said:

Is it possible to have a watermark added at the point of saving, so that my work can be viewed without watermarks on my site?

Alternatively, can a low res thumbnail be substituted for the main image at the point of saving?

I'm curious because my image work needs to be seen by potential clients so I don't want watermarked or low res images on my site. Most of my work would be of no interest to most people in terms of "stealing" it. Who would want an image of a shampoo bottle or a pizza in any case? But there are some items, comic strip stuff, film posters, record sleeves, etc. that might be a bit more desirable.

Yes, we all know you can't "stop" image theft but can make it harder. I know how to go into the source code & find an image but most people don't & that extra level would be good enough.

So just a right-click disabled will be enough for you?

Well, I did think that initially but I'm trying to take heed of some of the warnings up-thread that disabling right click could cause other problems.

I could imagine, for example, that a potential client wants to save out one of my images to send to someone (possibly to recommend me, etc). I wouldn't necessarily want to prevent that. But for some of the work, I'd prefer to have it locked down.

Would it be possible to disable right click on an image by image basis?

Any advance on this?

The previous thread was marked as solved. Which it wasn't, so I'm asking again.

I understand that locking down the right click functionality can cause other problems. That has been explained very clearly.

I also understand that anyone who really wants to & who knows how could gain access to my images, should they want to.

Bearing all that in mind, I have other questions.

Is there any method I can use to lock down the right click on selected images rather than site-wide?

Is there any way I can substitute a thumbnail image or water-marked image at the point of download?

Some additional information:

I notice that my browser & my phone behave differently.

if I right click on an image in my browser, I get the usual menu that allows me to open an image in a new tab. From there I could save the image at full size.

On my phone, this is not the case. When I click & hold on an image on my phone, it selects the image in a kind of highlighted form with the option to copy. I assume this is only making the equivalent of a screen shot?

But, plot twist, I use a piece of code by Rebecca Grace that allows me to insert a "before & after" slider onto two superimposed images. Wherever this code is used, those images become downloadable on my phone.

So, back to my questions at the top. Any ideas? 🙂

Quote

Is there any method I can use to lock down the right click on selected images rather than site-wide?

No. You simply can't lock down any image that someone can see in their browser. Any code you could install on your site can be gotten around.

Can you make it more difficult for those with no skills. Yes.

I have no code to provide. In theory you could do a site-wide effect or, with more complicated code, perhaps, restrict the effect to certain images.

Quote

Is there any way I can substitute a thumbnail image or water-marked image at the point of download?

I am not aware of such a mechanism to intervene in the browser download process. It may be possible to build your own download process but would be complicated. Even if you did this, you would still have the same problem of the non-watermarked image being available for those who are motivated to get it.

Quote

When I click & hold on an image on my phone, it selects the image in a kind of highlighted form with the option to copy. I assume this is only making the equivalent of a screen shot?

It is not a screenshot. It is the full image.

I can't comment on what the Rebecca Grace software is doing but there is no secret in there to lock down images or intervene in browser downloading processes.

7 minutes ago, creedon said:

It is not a screenshot. It is the full image.

Even when there's no sub-menu & it looks like the attached?

Quote

Even when there's no sub-menu & it looks like the attached?

Same UI I see on my iOS. It looks like it has movable handles on it by I couldn't make mine move. When I did a copy. Then saved it out to my computer and compared it to the original image uploaded to the site, it had all the same specs. Conclusion. It's not a screenshot but the UI is different between desktop and mobile. The underlying tech in the browser is using the same routine to copy the image despite the different UIs.