How-Old.net Is Gone. This Is the Free Modern Alternative
Microsoft's viral age-guessing site is no longer online. Upload a photo here and get an instant AI age estimate with today's far more accurate models — free, no signup.
Unlock your full Facial Aesthetics Report
Precise biological age, full beauty & symmetry breakdown, skin-health analysis, a personalized improvement plan, and progress tracking over time.
Start your free trialIn April 2015, Microsoft launched how-old.net as a demo at its Build conference, and it promptly broke the internet. Built on the Azure Face API, the little site let anyone upload a photo and get an instant age guess, and within days millions of people were sharing results under #HowOldRobot. It was many people's first hands-on encounter with AI — charming, chaotic, and often hilariously wrong.
Today, how-old.net is no longer available. If you've gone looking for it, this page is the modern replacement: upload a photo, and a current deep-learning model estimates the age you look in seconds — free, in your browser, with no signup and no app. Age-estimation research has come a long way since 2015, so typical errors are now around ±4 years, and your photo is deleted after analysis. To be clear, we are an independent tool with no affiliation to Microsoft — just the same simple fun, done with a decade-newer brain.
How the test works
What shapes your result
Anyone who used how-old.net remembers the wild misses — a birthday candle photo adding twenty years, a lucky angle subtracting ten. Some of that was the era's technology, and some was the photo. Modern models are far steadier, but the same photographic factors still matter: lighting, angle, resolution, and expression all shape what the AI can see.
Harsh or uneven light casts shadows into lines and folds and tends to read older; soft, even light reads younger and truer. Blurry or low-resolution images hide the skin detail the model relies on, filters smooth it away artificially, and big smiles crease the face in ways that can nudge the estimate up. For the most accurate result — and the fairest comparison between two people — use sharp, front-on photos taken in similar lighting with relaxed expressions.
Ready for the full picture?
Your free score is just the headline. The complete report breaks down every factor and gives you a plan to improve it.
Get your full face age reportFrequently asked questions
How-old.net launched in April 2015 as a Microsoft Build conference demo showcasing the Azure Face API. It went viral almost instantly, with millions of uploads and the #HowOldRobot hashtag spreading worldwide. It was always a demo rather than a permanent product, and it is no longer available online today. Microsoft has also since retired the public age-prediction capability it showcased, so the original site cannot simply be revived.
Yes — this page is one. Like the original, you upload a photo and get an instant AI age guess, free and directly in your browser with no signup, no email, and nothing to install. The difference is a decade of progress: the estimate comes from a modern deep-learning model with a typical error around ±4 years, and your photo is deleted after analysis rather than kept. We are independent and not affiliated with Microsoft.
How-old.net ran on the 2015-era Azure Face API, and its guesses were famously scattershot — part of the fun was how wrong it could be. This tool uses modern deep-learning age estimation trained on far larger datasets, mapping 68+ facial landmarks plus skin texture and tone, with typical errors around ±4 years. It also goes further than an age number, offering beauty, symmetry, and skin-age scores from the same photo.
No. Your photo is sent over an encrypted connection, analyzed to produce your age estimate, and then deleted. It is not stored on our servers, shared with other users, published anywhere, or used for advertising. Because the free test needs no account or email either, you can get your result without leaving any personal details behind — the estimate is yours to screenshot and share only if you choose.
Yes. The tool runs entirely in the browser, so it works on iPhone, Android, tablets, and desktops with no app to install. On a phone you can either upload an existing photo from your gallery or take a selfie directly with your camera. Analysis takes a few seconds on a normal mobile connection, and the same privacy rules apply everywhere: no signup, and your photo is deleted after the result.
Yes — half the fun of the original how-old.net was passing the phone around, and that works here too. Upload photos one at a time to compare friends, family members, or your own pictures across different years and lighting conditions. For a fair comparison, keep conditions similar: front-facing shots, even light, neutral expressions, no filters. You get a handful of free scans per day, which comfortably covers a round at the dinner table.
More free tools
Once you've got your age estimate, the same selfie can tell you more: try the Skin Age Test to see how old your skin reads, the Face Symmetry Test for your left-right balance, or the AI Beauty Score for the overall picture.