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Updated Jul 2026

Find and use stock photos

Search stock photos and videos without leaving the app, and import the ones you want straight into your media library.

Before you start

A stock provider must be configured on the server. If none is, the picker opens but tells you so instead of showing results. See “If something goes wrong” below.

Steps

  1. Open the stock picker. Where you find it depends on where you are:
    • On the Media page, select Add from stock.
    • In the Create Post dialog, choose Select from stock as an image source.
    • On a post’s page, wherever you’d add an image, select or add from stock.
  2. The picker opens already showing photos, never a blank screen. It starts you off with a rotating set of general-purpose photos (and your brand’s color, if your brand has one set), so there’s always something to browse before you search.
  3. If both are available, use Photos or Videos to switch media types.
  4. Type a search term. Results update automatically shortly after you stop typing, or you can press Enter.
  5. To narrow photo results by color, select one of the Color: chips (Any, one of your brand’s colors, or the custom color swatch). Color filtering only works for photos. When Videos is selected, the chips are disabled and the picker shows: “Color search isn’t available for videos.”
  6. Select the items you want. You can select up to 10 at a time. If you try to select an 11th, a message appears: “You can import up to 10 items at a time”.
  7. Select Import N items. Selected items are imported into your media library, and a confirmation appears: “Imported N items to your library” (or “Imported 1 item to your library” for a single item). If you opened the picker from the Create Post dialog or a post’s page, the imported items are also added there.

Attribution

Every photo and video shows the photographer’s or creator’s name underneath it. Selecting the name opens the original source page in a new tab.

If something goes wrong

“No stock providers configured — set PEXELS_API_KEY on the server to enable Pexels.”: No stock provider is set up for this environment. This isn’t something you can fix yourself. It needs a server-side API key.

“Pexels rate limit reached — try again in a bit.”: The stock provider is temporarily limiting requests. Wait a moment, then select Retry.

“No results for “{search term}"" (the search term appears in curly quotes in the app): Nothing matched your search. Try a different or broader term.

“N imports failed: {reason}” (or “1 import failed: {reason}” for a single item): One or more of your selected items couldn’t be imported. The reason shown is for the first failed item only, even if several failed. Anything that succeeded is still in your media library. Only the failed items need retrying.

If you were adding to a post and picked more stock photos than fit in that post’s image tray, the extras are still imported to your media library. They aren’t attached to that post, though. See Add images to a post for the tray limit and its own messages.