Having trouble downloading?

Macintosh OS9 users click here or scroll toward bottom of page.

Special Licensing downloaders will find help here.

PC and Mac OS X USERS read below.

1.) Make sure to choose "SAVE" instead of "OPEN" when box pops up.

Notice where on your computer you save the file... most times the file will be on your DESKTOP.

2.) If you can't find your photos and you think you downloaded them:
If you clicked the "Download Now" button and you saw the large photo (in other words you downloaded it) at some point, but now you can't find it, chances are 99% that it's on your computer somewhere, but you just don't know where it is. Try looking on your Desktop, your My Downloads folder, or C:\Documents and Settings\user\Local Settings\Temp (where '\user' is your Windows user folder)

Try searching for the files: All BigStockPhoto photos have names like 'bigstockphoto_23488_bigPineTree.jpg' - so if you do a search for files with 'bigstockphoto' in their name, you should be able to find the files.

3.) Try to change the .php extension to .jpg and open the file if you can't seem to open it. You may need to set your computer to show you your file extensions.

4.) If the image loads in a new browser window automatically, try any of the following:

• click + drag the image on your desktop, if it appears there, make sure the file extension is ".jpg" - then try to open it... or
• select "Save As" from the file menu. You MAY need to change the extension to ".jpg" if it is trying to save itself as ".php" file.
• or right click your mouse to save the file - Mac users will need to Control+click

5.) Some AOL members may have difficulties downloading images with the AOL browser. We recommend Internet Explorer, Firefox, Mozilla, or Safari. Camino and other browsers may not be supported.

6.) After download, try opening it from WITHIN your image program instead of double-clicking the file to open it.

7.) If you downloaded the image but it appears corrupted or doesn't show the entire image (sometimes only half the image will show), this is 99.9% a download error. Try downloading the image again -- you can re-download the image without losing a credit if you do it within 24 hours of your first download attempt - even though the screen says you will lose a credit. You won't if you have already downloaded the image and you're within 24 hours of that first download of the image.


If you're still having trouble, you can let us know on our Contact Us page if you need help or would like to recover a lost download credit.

The photo will have an odd-looking name like "bigstockphoto_BigTree_236763.jpg"

Mac OS9 Users:

If you are using Internet Explorer or other common Mac OS9 browsers, these instructions should work:

1.) Click "Download Photo Now" button on the final photo download page.

2.) The photo load in your browser window. Wait for it to complete. You can drag your scroll bars toward the bottom of the image as it downloads to see when it's completed.

3.) When it's done, press and HOLD the "Control" button on your keyboard while mouse-clicking on the image. You'll get a little menu that has an option "Download Image to Disk" or "Save Image As..." -- select that menu item and let go of your mouse, then let go of the Control button.

4.) A box pops up with the file name (like "bigstockphoto_BigTree_236763") and you can determine where you'll save it. Add ",jpg" to the end of the file name if it does not already end in ".jpg" - do not use the quotes (so now it's bigstockphoto_BigTree_236763.jpg). Choose to save it to your Desktop to make it simple.

5.) Click "Save" and the file will download to your Desktop. It may show an icon with a little moving progress bar while it RE-DOWNLOADS the image from BigStockPhoto in some cases. Be patient, if you are on high-speed connection it might take a minute or two... if you're on dial-up it could be up to 10 minutes or more if the file is really large.

Double click the image to open it in your Preview program or open the image in any image editor program.

>> If you downloaded the image but it appears corrupted or doesn't show the entire image (sometimes only half the image will show), this is 99.9% a download error. Try downloading the image again -- you can re-download the image without losing a credit if you do it within 24 hours of your first download attempt - even though the screen says you will lose a credit. You won't if you have already downloaded the image and you're within 24 hours of that first download of the image.

If you're still having trouble, you can let us know on our Contact Us page if you need help or would like to recover a lost download credit.