Wikimedia Commons

Wikimedia Commons is a media file repository making freely licensed media available to everyone.

You can upload images, audio, PDF files, and video to Wikimedia Commons, as long as you own them.

Wikimedia Commons Logo

Everything added to Wikimedia Commons must be shared with an open license allowing it to be shared elsewhere, including on Wikipedia.

Who uploads to Wikimedia Commons?

Anyone can contribute to Wikimedia Commons, including libraries, museums, galleries, and archives. Several institutions across Australia have been making significant contributions by uploading thousands of photos from their collections.

Other institutions make their photos available under a Creative Commons license, allowing them to be shared on Wikimedia Commons.

Photos and images from the archives of the History Trust of South Australia, National Gallery of Australia, Museums Victoria, Public Record Office Victoria, and Royal Australian Historical Society are available on Wikimedia Commons thanks to these institutions making their collections available to share under an open license.

What are the benefits of sharing photos and other archival documents?

For museums and galleries, adding content to Wikimedia Commons helps people find them because they will show up in web search results like Google Images. Many institutions have also found that it increases web traffic back to their own website and collections too.

Alice Springs Public Library In 2024 & 2025, Wikimedia Australia entered into a partnership with Alice Springs Public Library to add images from their Central Australian Historical Images Collection to Wikimedia Commons.

South Australian Museum The South Australian Museum partner project aimed to increase the visibility of the South Australian Museum's research and collections, with a focus on local scientific research and South Australian cultural history, through Wikipedia and related platforms.

State Library of NSW The State Library of NSW have added over 2,000 images to Wikimedia Commons, which have then been included in Wikipedia pages, increasing the visibility and discoverability of their digitised content.

State Library of Queensland The State Library of Queensland donated 50,000 out of copyright images to Wikimedia Commons in 2010. It was one of the largest donations at the time and the images have now been used over 5,000 times on articles across English Wikipedia, and were viewed over 8 million times in January 2023 alone.

How do I upload to Wikimedia Commons?

The handout for the workshop, The Commons Workflow, is available on Commons.

If you have photos in your collection you'd like to share, visit Wikimedia Commons, sign up for an account, and start uploading today. We recommend following the Commons Workflow process outlined in this handout from Mike Dickison for best practice.

If you have a large collection you want to upload all at once, contact Wikimedia Australia and we'll help you!

Tools and guides for uploading

• Wikimedia Commons Guide to batch uploading
• Pattypan and a Pattypan guide for upload to Wikimedia Commons
• OpenRefine, a flexible data wrangling tool, is also suitable for GLAM uploads. It takes a large number of data formats (including XML and data from APIs). OpenRefine supports editing and uploading structured data.

Wikimedia Commons events

• 2025 Wiki Science Competition — Saturday 1 November 2025
  This contest promotes the visualisation and free exchange of scientific images on Wikimedia projects

Wikimedia Commons competitions and campaigns

Wikimedia Australia regularly supports and facilitates public engagement in Wikimedia Commons through training, online competitions and campaigns.

Wiki Science Competition The Wiki Science Competition is an international photography contest organised by the Wikimedia community, inviting participants to create and upload science-related images to Wikimedia Commons under a free licence.

Wiki Loves Earth Wiki Loves Earth (WLE) is an annual international photographic competition organised worldwide by Wikimedia chapters, groups and local Wikipedia volunteers. Wikimedia Australia has taken part since 2016, alongside other Wiki Loves projects.

Wiki Loves Monuments Wiki Loves Monuments is an international photographic competition to promote historic sites around the World through Wikimedia projects (mainly Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons). Everybody can participate.