You can find an image based on its type, name, ID, or snapshot ID. After you find an image, you can use the image to create an instance or perform other operations. This topic describes how to find an image.

Methods

You can use one of the following methods to find an image:

Find an image by using the ECS console

You can find an image that you want to manage on the Images page in the Elastic Compute Service (ECS) console.

  1. Log on to the ECS console.
  2. In the left-side navigation pane, choose Instances & Images > Images.
  3. In the top navigation bar, select a region.
  4. Select an image type.
  5. Optional:Select an image family.
    Note You can select an image family only for custom images. By default, all images are displayed.
  6. Select a filter condition from the drop-down list.
    Note
    • For custom images, you can select Image Name, Image ID, or Snapshot ID as the filter condition.
    • For public and shared images, you can select Image Name or Image ID as the filter condition.
    • For Alibaba Cloud Marketplace images, you can select Image ID, Instance ID, or Image Name as the filter condition.
    • For community images, you can select Image Name, Image ID, or Owner ID as the filter condition.
  7. Enter a value in the search box.
  8. Click the Search icon icon to search for an image.

Example 1

Example 1: Find a Windows public image in the China (Beijing) region.

Perform the following operations on the Images page:

  1. In the left part of the top navigation bar, select China (Beijing) from the drop-down list.
  2. Click the Public Images tab.
  3. Select Image Name from the drop-down list.
  4. Enter win in the search box.
  5. Click the Search icon icon to search for an image.

Example 2

Example 2: Find a shared image whose name contains MySQL in the China (Hangzhou) region.

Perform the following operations on the Images page.

  1. In the left part of the top navigation bar, select China (Hangzhou) from the drop-down list.
  2. Click the Shared Images tab.
  3. Select Image Name from the drop-down list.
  4. Enter MySQL in the search box.
  5. Click the Search icon icon to search for an image.

Example 3

Example 3: Find a custom image whose snapshot ID is s-123**** in the China (Shenzhen) region.

Perform the following operations on the Images page.

  1. In the left part of the top navigation bar, select China (Shenzhen) from the drop-down list.
  2. Click the Custom Images tab.
  3. Select Snapshot ID from the drop-down list.
  4. Enter s-123**** in the search box.
  5. Click the Search icon icon to search for an image.

Find an image by calling an API operation

You can also find an image by using OpenAPI Explorer or Alibaba Cloud CLI to call the DescribeImages operation. For more information about Alibaba Cloud CLI, see What is Alibaba Cloud CLI?. This section describes how to use OpenAPI Explorer to call the DescribeImages operation to find an image.

  1. Go to OpenAPI Explorer.
  2. In the RegionId field, enter the region ID.
  3. Optional:Specify parameters such as ImageName and ImageId.
    Note Image IDs must comply with the following naming rules:
    • IDs of public images are named after the operating system version numbers, architectures, languages, and release dates of the images. For example, the ID of a Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise 64-bit (English) public image is win2008r2_64_ent_sp1_en-us_40G_alibase_20190318.vhd.
    • IDs of custom images, community images, and Alibaba Cloud Marketplace images start with m.
    • IDs of shared images are the same as those of the custom images that were shared.
  4. Click Call Now.
  5. Click the Response tab.

    If the image is found, its information such as the image ID, description, and operating system is displayed on the Response tab. For more information, see DescribeImages.

What to do next

After you find an image, you can perform the following operations: