How to use it
- Open a photo. iPhone HEIC photos work too.
- Drag a box over the area to hide, or paint it with the brush. Drag a box to move it and drag a corner to resize it. If dragging is hard, tap the photo once or press Add box, then move it with the arrow buttons.
- Pick an effect (pixelate, blur or cover) and a strength, then press Save. Made a mistake? Use Undo (Ctrl+Z).
Pixelate, blur or cover?
Blur looks natural for faces and backgrounds. For text that must not be read, such as ID numbers, licence plates, addresses or bank details, use Cover (a solid black box). A light blur or small pixel blocks can leave the outline of the letters, and tools that guess blurred text back have been published. If you pixelate text, raise the strength until each letter fits in one or two blocks.
Why metadata (EXIF) is removed
Phone photos can carry EXIF data such as the GPS location, date and time, and camera model. Even with faces hidden, a location tag can reveal a home or office, so this tool writes no metadata into the saved file. The photo's rotation is applied before saving, so it will not appear sideways.
Resolution and formats
The file is saved at the original resolution. On phones, photos above about 16 megapixels are edited at a smaller size so the browser does not run out of memory, and the page tells you when that happens. JPG suits photos, PNG suits screenshots and text, and WebP gives smaller files.