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Blur a face or part of an image

Drag over a face, a name, a number plate or a card number and it’s blurred, pixelated or blacked out. You see the result as you draw, and the photo never leaves your device.

I want Save the image

Settings appear once you add an image.

Hide it with
Shape
50%

Done on your device No upload, no queue, no sign-up.

Bytes sent anywhere: 0 B

Works offline after you’ve used it once.

How to use it

Your photo goes into this browser tab, has the areas you marked blurred or blacked out on your device, and comes back with them hidden for good. 0 bytes uploaded

  1. Add your files

    Drop a photo or screenshot. It opens here, ready to mark.

  2. Check the settings

    Drag across each face, name or number. Choose blur, pixelate or a black box, and a box or an oval; the picture updates as you draw.

  3. Save the result

    Press Save the image. You get a copy with those areas hidden for good, and the hidden metadata removed too.

Why it doesn’t upload

The things people blur are exactly the things they don’t want strangers to have: a child’s face, an address, an account number. Sending the unblurred photo to a website to be blurred would hand all of it over first. Here the picture is changed in this tab, on your device.

How to check for yourself

Worth knowing

  • You mark the areas yourself. Nothing detects faces here. For screenshots, Redact a Screenshot finds emails, card numbers and keys for you.
  • In a batch, the areas land in the same place on every image. That suits screenshots of the same screen; for different photos, do them one at a time.
  • Photos and screenshots only. Blurring a face in a video isn’t possible here yet. Animated GIFs come out as a single still picture.
  • The saved copy is changed for good; the original on your device isn’t touched, so keep or delete it as you prefer.

Blur, pixelate or black out: which to use

Blur is the gentlest on the eye: a face or a background becomes a soft smudge while the photo still looks like a photo. It’s the right choice for passers-by, children in the background and number plates in a listing.

Pixelate makes it obvious something was hidden on purpose, which suits screenshots and news-style photos.

Black out is for anything that must not be read: card and account numbers, passwords, addresses, signatures, ID numbers. It’s the only one of the three with nothing left underneath to guess from. The same rule holds for PDFs: redacting a PDF properly means removing the text, not just covering it.

Before you share a photo with something blurred

Check the rest of the picture: reflections in windows and glasses, a name badge, a letter on the table, the screen behind someone. Then check what the file itself says. Phones record the exact place a photo was taken, and blurring a street sign achieves little if the GPS coordinates are still in the file. This tool removes that metadata as it saves; the photo metadata viewer shows what any other photo carries.

Questions

How do I blur part of a picture?

Drop the picture here, drag across the part you want hidden, and press Save the image. Mark as many areas as you like; drag one to move it or pull its corner to resize it. Choose Blur, Pixelate or Black out, and the preview shows exactly what the saved image will look like.

How do I blur a face in a photo?

Choose Oval (for faces), then drag from one corner of the face to the opposite one. Raise the Strength if the face is large or the photo is sharp. For several faces, drag over each in turn; nothing is uploaded and there’s no watermark on the result.

Is blurring enough to hide text or numbers?

Not always. Researchers have recovered pixelated text by trying likely words until the pixelation matched, and a light blur on large text can still be read. For card numbers, passwords, addresses and anything else that must not be read, choose Black out: a solid box has nothing left to recover.

How do I blur part of a screenshot?

The same way: drop the screenshot, drag over the name, email or number, and save. It’s a PNG in and a PNG out, so the rest of the screenshot stays crisp. If you have a series of screenshots of the same screen, drop them together and the areas you mark apply to all of them.

Does the blurred photo still contain the original?

No. The blurred areas are painted into the picture and the image is saved again, so the hidden parts aren’t kept underneath anywhere in the file. Saving also removes the photo’s hidden metadata — GPS location, date and device — which would otherwise give away what the blur was hiding. To see what a photo carries first, use the photo metadata viewer.

Read more about this

Next steps

Often used before or after Blur an Image. These run on your device too.