How to tell if an image was made with Midjourney

What Midjourney writes into the file

The “Content Authenticity” help page from August 2026 describes the tag as pointing to a real Midjourney image. According to Midjourney, a faked or copied tag does not pass the check.

C2PA (Content Credentials) is a signed provenance record in the file, IPTC Digital Source Type a metadata field on how the image was made, for example trainedAlgorithmicMedia for fully AI-generated images. An invisible watermark sits in the pixels, and only the vendor can read it.

How to check a Midjourney image

1. Drag the original file from Midjourney into the box above. It is read in your browser, not uploaded. Screenshots and copies from stores or social networks usually no longer carry the data.
2. If the checker shows a reference to Midjourney under “IPTC / XMP”, “EXIF” or in the file name, that is a hint. Whether it shows the tag itself depends on the field the tag uses, which Midjourney does not disclose.
3. Only midjourney.com/verify checks reliably. It is free, needs no account and has a daily limit, and Midjourney says it does not keep the image.
4. The check has three possible answers: created with Midjourney; a tag is present but does not point to a real image; no Midjourney metadata found.

More detail in the AI image checker.

The checker is not an AI detector. It only shows what the file says. An empty result does not prove a real photo, not least because providers of AI systems placed on the market before 2 August 2026 have until 2 December 2026 to add machine-readable marking (Article 111(4) AI Act).

What survives uploads and edits

According to Midjourney, screenshots, edits and most social networks remove the tag. The answer “no Midjourney metadata found” explicitly does not mean that Midjourney did not make the image.

Labelling duty in your store under the EU AI Act

If you use Midjourney to create or edit images for your own store, you are a deployer, even when an agency or an employee works on your instructions (Article 3(4) AI Act, Commission guidelines para. 12, 14). If the image is a deep fake, meaning realistic and falsely appearing authentic, you have had to label it visibly since 2 August 2026 (Article 50(4) AI Act). The labelling check tells you whether that applies, and the guide to the labelling duty explains the rules.

The traces in the table do not replace that label, because people cannot see them straight away (guidelines para. 117). Still, keep them in the file, as the guidelines recommend. They document where the image came from.

A clearly drawn or fantastical motif is usually not a deep fake according to the guidelines (para. 116). A photorealistic model or a realistic scene with your product can be one.

How Midjourney labels its own output

Midjourney marks its images with its own tag and the verification page. It documents no C2PA record, no watermark in the pixels and no visible mark on the image.