Acetic acid mediated synthesis of novel tetraarylimidazoles derivatives has been reported via multicomponent reaction of benzil or phenanthrene‐9,10‐dione, NH4OAc, vanillin and aniline derivatives under microwave irradiation. Several novel tetraarylimidazole derivatives, phenanthroimidazole and bis‐tetraphenylimidazole bearing a 2‐methoxyphenol substituent at position 2 of imidazole ring were prepared. The advantages of this method are the one‐pot preparation of compounds, in short reaction times (4‐7 min) and good yields. All synthesized compounds with a 2‐methoxyphenol substituent at position 2 of imidazole ring exhibited good photochromic behavior. The photoisomerization can be performed from ground state to triplet excited state according to TD‐DFT calculation. The results showed that the presence of ortho‐methoxy substituent to hydroxyl substitution has the greatest effect on photochromic properties of target compounds. Furthermore, a pattern was successfully visualized upon UV light irradiation, which suggested that these compounds can be served as a security ink or an anti‐counterfeiting mark for photo printing.