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ItalianoFree AI alt text generator
Alt text for images? The AI writes it. In seconds.
Every image on your website needs alternative text, otherwise it stays invisible to blind visitors and search engines. Upload an image and the AI describes it following the WCAG rules.
AI suggestions without warranty: please review every description before use. The generator replaces neither a manual review nor legal advice.
What alt text is and why every image needs it
The alternative text is the invisible description behind every image. Without it, the image simply doesn't exist for part of your visitors.
Alt text (alternative text) lives in the alt attribute of an image in the HTML code. It's normally invisible, but screen readers read it aloud to blind and visually impaired visitors, browsers show it when an image fails to load, and search engines use it to understand what the image shows. It is the one place where an image gets translated into text.
The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines turn this into a clear rule: criterion 1.1.1 (Non-text Content) requires a text alternative for every informative image, already at Level A, the lowest tier. A missing alt text is therefore not a detail but one of the most fundamental violations a website can have.
And it is alarmingly common: large-scale surveys such as the WebAIM Million study find missing alternative text on more than half of all home pages examined, year after year among the most frequent failures overall. Without alt text, a screen reader may end up announcing the file name: "IMG_4711_final_v2.jpg" helps no one.
Since 28 June 2025 this is also a legal matter: the European Accessibility Act and national laws such as Germany's BFSG require WCAG compliance via the EN 301 549 standard, alternative texts included. The pleasant side effect: good alt text also improves your visibility in image search.
Not every image needs the same alt text
The right description depends on the job the image does on the page. Four cases cover almost everything.
Informative images
Photos, illustrations and graphics that carry content. The alt text briefly describes what is shown and why it matters for the page: "Handcrafted oak table with six chairs in a conservatory" instead of "table".
Functional images
Images that act as a button or link, such as the magnifier in a search field or the linked logo. Here the alt text describes the function, not the look: "Search" instead of "magnifier icon", "To the home page" instead of "company logo".
Decorative images
Ornaments, background patterns, mood images without a message. They get an empty alt="" so screen readers skip them. Important: empty means present and empty, a missing alt attribute is an error.
Complex graphics
Charts, diagrams and infographics don't fit into 125 characters. They get a short alt text with the key message plus a detailed description in the surrounding text. The generator gives you both.
The five most common alt text failures
Our website scans keep surfacing the same patterns. Check your images specifically for these five classics.
- 1
No alt attribute at all
The most common case: the attribute is missing entirely. Depending on the software, screen readers then announce the file name or URL, and the visitor hears "IMG underscore 4711 underscore final". Every img element needs an alt attribute, an empty one if necessary.
- 2
File name or keyword list as alt text
"garden-furniture-oak-table-buy-cheap.jpg" is not alt text, it's spam. Screen reader users hear a meaningless word chain, and search engines nowadays tend to penalize keyword stuffing in the alt attribute rather than reward it.
- 3
"Image of …" and similar filler
The screen reader already announces that an image follows. If the alt text starts with "image of" or "photo of", the visitor hears "graphic: image of …" twice. Start directly with the content.
- 4
Meaningless or identical texts everywhere
"Photo", "image1", "banner" or the same text under twenty product images: formally present, practically useless. Someone who can't see which variant is meant can't make a buying decision.
- 5
Linked images without a destination description
If the image is the only content of a link, its alt text becomes the link text. A linked logo with alt="logo" doesn't say where it leads. Correct is the destination: "To the home page".
How to write good alt text
Four rules that get almost every description right, whether written by hand or from an AI suggestion.
Keep it short and specific
Around 125 characters is a proven upper limit, older screen readers split longer texts awkwardly. Describe what matters for this page, not every detail. The character counter in the generator helps.
Function over appearance
Don't ask "what's in the image?" but "what is the image for?". For buttons and linked images the alt text describes the action, for product photos the product, for team photos the person and their role.
Carry over text inside the image
If there is text in the image, say on a banner or a quote tile, it belongs word for word in the alt text. Otherwise exactly the information the image was made for gets lost.
Think about context
The same photo needs different alt text on the team page than in a blog post. So feel free to give the generator a line of context, the field for it sits right below the upload.
How the generator works
Four steps from image to ready-to-use HTML.
- 1
Upload an image
JPG, PNG, WebP or GIF up to 8 MB, by click or drag and drop. Optionally add a line of context.
- 2
AI describes
A vision language model analyzes the image and writes alt text plus a detailed description following the WCAG rules, in your chosen language.
- 3
Review and refine
You know your page: read the suggestion and sharpen it if needed. The character counter shows whether the length fits.
- 4
Copy and paste
Copy the alt text or the finished HTML snippet with one click and drop it into your CMS or code. Done.
The legal framework: alternative text is mandatory
Four sets of rules interlock and turn good practice into a legal requirement.
WCAG 2.2
The international W3C standard. Criterion 1.1.1 requires text alternatives for all non-text content, already at Level A. Without alt text, WCAG conformance is impossible at any level.
EN 301 549
The European standard for accessible IT adopts WCAG Level AA as the binding benchmark. It is the technical yardstick behind all EU accessibility legislation.
European Accessibility Act
EU Directive 2019/882, in force for many websites, shops and apps since 28 June 2025. It ensures comparable requirements across all member states, so anyone selling across Europe cannot avoid text alternatives.
National laws like the BFSG
Each member state transposes the directive, in Germany as the BFSG with fines of up to 100,000 euros. Missing alternative texts are among the easiest violations to prove.
How many images without alt text does your website have?
The free website check finds every image without alternative text, with its exact position in the code.
AI suggestion means: you have the final say
The AI describes what it sees, and it does so remarkably well. But it doesn't know your page: whether the photo shows your CEO or a stock model, whether the chart carries the key message of your article, only you know. Treat every suggestion as a strong draft you quickly review, not as finished truth. The generator is explicitly not legal advice.
About your images: each image is passed to our own AI model for the single requested description, processed in memory and then discarded. It is not stored, not used for training and not shared with third parties.
Frequently asked questions about alt text
What exactly is alt text?
The alternative text is the content of the alt attribute in the img element. Screen readers read it aloud, browsers show it for broken images, search engines index it. It translates the image content into text and is mandatory for informative images under WCAG 1.1.1.
When should alt text stay empty?
For purely decorative images: ornaments, background patterns, mood images without information. Then an empty alt="" belongs in the markup so screen readers skip the image. A completely missing alt attribute, however, is always an error.
How long may alt text be?
There is no fixed limit, but up to about 125 characters has proven itself, because older screen readers split longer texts. Complex graphics get a short alt text plus a detailed description in the surrounding text; the generator delivers both.
Is alt text legally required?
Yes, for companies in scope of the European Accessibility Act and national laws like the BFSG: both require WCAG conformance via EN 301 549, and text alternatives are criterion 1.1.1 at Level A, the lowest tier. Public bodies have been obliged for years.
Does alt text help with Google too?
Yes. Search engines use alternative text to understand images, good descriptions improve rankings in image search and give the page additional context. Keyword stuffing in the alt attribute, on the other hand, tends to hurt.
Why do I need an account for the generator?
Behind every description runs a large vision language model on our own hardware, which costs real compute time. With a free account you describe 10 images per month at no cost; paid plans have only a daily fair-use cap instead of a monthly limit.
Are my images stored?
No. Your image is processed in memory only, passed to our own model for exactly the one requested description and then discarded. It is neither stored nor used for training nor shared with third parties.
Can the AI get it wrong?
Yes, occasionally. It sees the image but not your page: names of people, internal product names or the role of an image in your article are unknown to it. Give every suggestion a quick review; the context field above the generate button makes suggestions noticeably more accurate.
Upload the first image, the AI does the rest.
Alt text and detailed description in seconds, in 5 languages, with ready-to-use HTML. Your images are never stored.
To the alt text generator