Free Images for Your X Header and the Licenses Behind Them

The safest images for an X header are ones you made yourself, public domain works, and images released under a license that allows your use. That last group includes CC0 and the licenses of the big free photo sites. Anything else you find through a search engine is probably someone's copyrighted work, and using it as your header is copying it.

This isn't legal advice, just the working knowledge we use when we pick and make artwork. If your use is commercial and high stakes, read the actual license text or ask a lawyer.

Why "it was on the internet" doesn't count

In the United States and most other countries, a photo or illustration is protected by copyright as soon as it's created. The creator doesn't need to register it or add a © notice. So an image with no notice on it isn't free; it just doesn't say who owns it.

A header is a public use. It's shown at the top of your profile to everyone who visits, and on a business account it's part of your marketing. Photographers and stock agencies do find their work on social profiles and send takedown requests or invoices. On X that can mean the header is removed after a copyright complaint, and repeated complaints can put your account at risk.

Three kinds of images you can use

Your own work

A photo you took or a graphic you drew is yours to use. There are two catches. Recognizable people in your photo may have a say in how their image is used commercially, and a photo of someone else's artwork, like a mural or a poster, can still carry that artist's copyright.

Making your own is easier than it sounds. A gradient or pattern with a line of text is often better at header size than a photo anyway. The header maker on this site builds one in a minute, and you own the result.

Public domain

Public domain works aren't protected by copyright at all, usually because the copyright expired or the creator gave it up. In the US, works by federal government employees made as part of their jobs are public domain too, which is why many NASA images are popular as headers. Even then, check the specific image page: some images on government sites come from outside photographers and carry their own terms, and logos and insignia have separate rules.

Old paintings and photographs whose copyright has expired are another good source. Museum collections often mark public domain scans clearly, and many let you download them in high resolution.

Licensed for free use

Many images are copyrighted but come with a license that gives you permission in advance. The most common are:

• CC0. The creator waives their rights as far as the law allows. You can use, change and publish the image without credit. It works like public domain.
• CC BY. You can use and change it, including commercially, as long as you credit the creator. CC BY-SA adds that if you share your modified version, you share it under the same license.
• NC and ND variants. "NC" means non-commercial only, which rules out business accounts and promotion. "ND" means no derivatives, so you can't crop it heavily, add text or combine it with other images. That makes ND images a poor fit for headers.
• Photo-site licenses. Free photo sites such as Unsplash, Pexels and Pixabay use their own licenses. In general they allow free use, including commercial use, without required credit, but they restrict things like selling unaltered copies or implying that people in the photos endorse you. Each site's rules are a little different, and they change over time, so read the license page of the site you're using.

Mistakes that cause trouble

Using brand logos and characters

A team logo, a cartoon character or a movie still is someone's trademark or copyright, even when the image itself came from a free site. Fan accounts get away with it often, but not always, and a business account using another brand's logo can look like a false endorsement.

Trusting the uploader, not the owner

Free sites and Creative Commons search results sometimes contain images uploaded by people who didn't own them. If an image looks like a famous professional photo or a film still, be suspicious, and run a reverse image search to see where it really came from.

Losing the license details

Save the page link and a screenshot of the license when you download an image. If you're ever asked, it shows where the image came from and under what terms. It takes ten seconds and is almost impossible to reconstruct a year later.

Forgetting about people

A free license from the photographer doesn't always cover the people in the picture. Using a stranger's face prominently on a business profile, as if they're your customer or staff, is risky even with a CC0 photo.

Ignoring the credit line

If the license requires credit, give it. Put something like "Header photo: Jane Doe, CC BY 4.0" in a pinned post, or in your bio if there's space. A credit painted into the header itself usually ends up too small to read on a phone.

How to credit an image properly

Creative Commons suggests an approach often summed up as TASL: title, author, source and license. A full credit looks like this:

"Morning Fog" by Jane Doe, from Example Photos, licensed CC BY 4.0.

On X you won't always have room for all of it. Link to the source page where you can, and say if you changed the image ("cropped and recolored").

What you can do with our designs

Every header on Free Twitter Layout was drawn for this site, so there's no third-party photo or font license hiding inside them. You can:

• Use any design as your X header and the matching avatar as your profile photo, on personal or business accounts.
• Add your own text, crop it, recolor it or combine it with your logo.
• Skip the credit. We'd like it, but it's not required.

What we ask you not to do is resell the designs, bundle them into a download pack, or post them to other wallpaper or template sites as if they were yours. Our About page has the short version of these terms.

Browse the full gallery, or start with a texture like Rustic Faded and add your own words in the maker.

Questions