Search filesSearch Commons for freely licensed photos, video, audio, documents and 3D models, narrowed to one kind of media and ordered by relevance or upload date. Each result carries the file's URL, a preview at the width you ask for, its dimensions and who uploaded it.
Search categoriesSearch Commons for categories by subject. Commons files everything into categories rather than folders, so this is usually the first step: find the category, then list what is in it.
Suggest titlesComplete a partial file, category or gallery title the way the search box on Commons does, turning a half-remembered name into the exact title the other actions need.
Search files near a locationFind geotagged files taken within a radius of a point, nearest first, with the distance from that point on each one.
Get random filesPull random files from the whole repository, for a daily picture post, a screensaver feed, or sampling what Commons holds.
Get file detailsEverything about one file, including how it must be credited: its URL, a preview, its dimensions and size, and the licence, author, credit line and whether attribution is required.
Get thumbnail URLAsk Commons to render one file at a given width and return the URL, for embedding it in an email, a document or a message without moving the original. Works for video and PDF too.
Get the categories a file is inList the categories one file is filed under, which is how Commons says what a file is about. Housekeeping categories are left out unless asked for.
Get where a file is usedList the pages across every Wikimedia project that use this file, which is the measure of how widely it is actually used.
Get a file's description pageRead the raw wikitext of a file's description page, for anything the shaped fields do not carry.
Get a file's versionsList the versions of the file itself, newest first, each with its own URL, so a workflow can tell whether the file it recorded is still the one being served.
Get a file's structured dataRead a file's captions in each language and its Wikidata statements, such as depicts, which say what a photo shows as an item id rather than as prose.
List the files in a categoryList the files filed directly under one category, each with its URL and a preview.
List subcategoriesList the subcategories of one category, which is how a workflow walks down from a broad subject to the files it actually wants.
Get category detailsCount what one category holds without listing any of it, so a workflow can decide whether it is worth walking into.
Browse the category indexWalk the category index alphabetically, with each category's counts beside it, from a prefix or a starting point.
Browse the file indexWalk the file index by name, or by when files were uploaded, filtered to one uploader or a date window.
List recent uploadsRead the upload log: what was uploaded, by whom and when, telling a brand new file from a new version of an existing one.
List recent changesRead the recent-changes feed, filtered by part of the site, kind of change, change tag, contributor and date window. Bot edits are left out unless asked for.
Get contributor detailsLook up a Commons contributor: how long they have been here, how active they are, and what rights they hold.
