Point your camera at a stone and get an answer you can check

Gleamite identifies rocks, crystals and gemstones from a photo — and then does the thing photo identifiers usually skip: it shows the physical check that confirms each match, because a name without a test is just a guess with confidence.

1. Step 1Photograph the stoneDaylight, plain background, dry shot then wet. The app reads color, grain, luster and shape — everything a photo honestly carries.
2. Step 2Read ranked candidatesTwo or three matches with the evidence for each, not one flat label. Ties are shown as ties.
3. Step 3Run the one deciding checkHardness, streak, vinegar or UV — each match names the test that separates it from its lookalike, and most take under a minute.

Identify by photo

Three doors into the same method, split by what is in your hand — because a beach pebble, a crystal point and a ring stone pass and fail different checks.

• Rock identifier

  Photograph a rock and get ranked matches with the properties to check — hardness, streak, grain — instead of a bare label to take on faith.

• Crystal identifier

  Amethyst or dyed quartz, citrine or baked amethyst: a photo narrows it to candidates, and two physical checks settle it.

• Gem identifier

  A photo can name the likely species of a loose stone. It cannot see treatments or lab origin — the page says where that line is.

Charts and rock types

The manual method, in full. These charts run the same logic the app automates — grain, layers, hardness, fizz — and they work with a steel nail and a bottle of vinegar.

• Rock identification chart

  The three rock families and the twenty rocks people actually find, in one table you can work through with a steel nail and a copper coin.

• Sedimentary rock identification

  Layers, grains and fossils mark the assembled family. The grain-size ladder from shale to conglomerate, and the vinegar test that finds the carbonates.

• Igneous rock identification

  Two questions place any igneous rock on a grid: how coarse is the grain, and how dark is the color. Granite to basalt to obsidian, one table.

• Metamorphic rock identification

  Foliated or not is the first split, and the slate-to-gneiss ladder does the rest. Plus the vinegar check that separates marble from quartzite.

• Mineral identification chart

  Twenty common minerals in one lookup: luster first, hardness second, streak third. The order matters — each column eliminates more candidates than the next.

• Streak test

  The powder color of a mineral is steadier than its surface color, and an unglazed tile reads it in seconds. How to run the test and the chart of common streaks.

Mineral guides

The two stones people most want named on a beach, and the specific impostor each one has. Agate and jasper are the same quartz family separated by a flashlight.

• How to identify agate

  Banding, waxy luster and a hardness test settle most agate questions on the beach. The lookalikes — jasper, chert, dyed slices — each fail one specific check.

• How to identify quartz

  The most common answer in rock identification, confirmed by three properties: scratches glass, breaks in curved shells, and never splits along flat faces.

• How to identify pyrite

  Striated cubes, a greenish-black streak and brass that grays in shade: pyrite as a mineral in its own right, not just the thing that fools gold panners.

• How to identify jasper

  Opaque where agate glows, saturated where chert is dull: the light test and the hardness test that pin jasper down, and the trade names that are not jasper at all.

Identify by color

Color is where identification starts and where it lies most. These pages name what actually carries each color — and the coats, dyes and treatments that fake it.

• Pink rock identification

  Rose quartz, pink feldspar, rhodonite or dye: what actually turns a stone pink, and the hardness and fizz checks that split the candidates.

• Red rock identification

  Nearly every red stone owes its color to iron. Jasper, carnelian, garnet and red sandstone, separated by streak, hardness and how the red sits.

• Orange rock identification

  The first question about an orange stone is whether the color goes through it or coats it — iron staining fakes more orange finds than any mineral.

• Yellow rock identification

  Citrine, yellow jasper, sulfur and pyrite each wear yellow differently. Luster and hardness sort them, and a streak plate retires the metallic one.

• Green rock identification

  Serpentine, jade, malachite and their kin: which minerals carry the green, which check separates each pair, and where the vinegar test applies.

State guides

Geology is regional, and a guide that knows your shoreline beats a generic one. What each state actually produces, plus the collecting rules that come with it.

• Michigan rock identification

  Petoskey stones, Lake Superior agates, greenstone and Yooperlites: what each one looks like wet and dry, and the 25-pound rule for taking them home.

• Missouri rock identification

  Mozarkite, galena, geodes and crinoid fossils: the Ozark state finds, the checks that confirm each, and the hand-washing rule that comes with lead ore.

• Ohio rock identification

  Flint Ridge flint, Ordovician fossils by the bucket, and celestine under Lake Erie: what Ohio actually produces and how to name each find.

• Texas rock identification

  Blue topaz, Llanite that exists nowhere else, Big Bend agates and petrified palmwood — plus the permission rule that governs a mostly private state.

• Georgia rock identification

  Staurolite fairy crosses, deep-purple amethyst and the Dahlonega gold that started a rush in 1829: Georgia finds and the checks behind each.

What did I find

The questions that arrive as objects: a heavy black stone, a round hollow-sounding lump, glass with no bubbles. Each page is an elimination sequence for one find.

• How to identify a meteorite

  Magnet, weight, crust and the vesicle veto — the elimination sequence that retires slag and magnetite before a lab ever needs to be involved.

• Is this rock a geode

  Round, bumpy, and light for its size: the three signs of a hollow interior, the rattle check, and how to open a candidate without destroying it.

• How to identify obsidian

  Natural glass with no crystals and no bubbles. The bubble check is the whole game — round holes mean slag or bottle glass, whatever the color says.

• How to identify petrified wood

  Wood grain at stone weight: growth rings, ray lines and glass-scratching hardness in one object. What to check, and where taking it home is a felony.

• How to identify flint

  Waxy, dark, harder than steel and it proves itself with a spark. Flint against chert, obsidian and basalt, plus the white rind that gives it away.

Valuable finds

Most rocks that look valuable are quartz, and most metallic glints are pyrite. These pages are elimination sequences: five free checks before anyone charges you a fee.

• Identifying valuable rocks

  Most finds are quartz, and the exceptions follow rules: what weight, hardness and color actually signal, and the tests a dealer would run first.

• Gold in rocks

  Real gold dents, pyrite shatters, and a streak plate tells them apart in ten seconds. What gold-bearing rock looks like and the tests that need no acid.

App comparisons

What each identifier app verifiably offers, measured rather than reviewed — including the one comparison decision other lists skip: our own app is not in the ranking.

• Rock identifier apps

  The four apps people actually install, compared on platforms, footprint and stated features — with what nobody has actually tested stated plainly.

How this site is written

Every physical property on these pages — hardness values, streak colors, specific gravities — carries its source and the date we read it, and the search figures that decided which pages exist are from a named Ahrefs measurement. Claims about other companies’ apps are read from their own store pages, dated, and where we have not tested something, the page says so instead of implying we did.

Who writes this and how each figure gets its date is on the about page. The terms of use cover the real limit: identification is not appraisal, and nothing here prices a stone. What the site knows about you is on the privacy page, and it is nearly nothing.