The encrypted image retrieval in cloud computing is a key technology to realize the massive images of storage and management and images safety. In this paper, a novel feature extraction method for encrypted image retrieval is proposed. First, the improved Harris algorithm is used to extract the image features. Next, the Speeded-Up Robust Features algorithm and the Bag of Words model are applied to generate the feature vectors of each image. Then, Local Sensitive Hash algorithm is applied to construct the searchable index for the feature vectors. The chaotic encryption scheme is utilized to protect images and indexes security. Finally, secure similarity search is executed on the cloud server. The experimental results show that compared with the existing encryption retrieval schemes, the proposed retrieval scheme not only reduces the time consumption but also improves the image retrieval accuracy. INDEX TERMS Cloud computing, image retrieval, Harris corner detection, local sensitive hash.