Blur faces in a photo
Share the picture without sharing who is in it. The tool boxes every face it finds, you fix the boxes, choose how to hide them, and save.
Add one or more photos. Faces are found automatically on your device.
or drop files here
Small, turned or partly covered faces can be missed. Check the picture and add boxes by hand where needed.
A solid color hides an area completely; a strong blur or large blocks are safer than light ones. The photo is saved in its original format (HEIC, AVIF, GIF and BMP as JPG, or PNG if it has transparency). Metadata such as the location is not copied.
Your files are processed on your own device and never uploaded.
How to use it
- Add photos with ‘Choose files’, drop them on the page, or paste a copied image. The first time, a 1.6 MB face-finding model is loaded, and then each photo is scanned.
- Check the boxes the tool placed on the faces; they start out as ovals. Drag across the picture to add one it missed, drag a box to move it, pull a corner to resize it, and click the × on a box to delete it.
- Switch to ‘Brush’ and paint over anything else that identifies someone: a license plate, a name badge, a mail label. ‘Rectangle’ and ‘Ellipse’ draw new boxes.
- In the ‘Effect’ group choose ‘Blur’, ‘Pixelate’ or ‘Solid color’, then adjust ‘Strength’, ‘Block size’ or ‘Color’.
- Click ‘Blur and save’. ‘Download’ takes one photo; ‘Download all (ZIP)’ takes the whole set.
What it does
Faces found on your device
A 1.6 MB face detector runs in your browser, first on the whole photo and then, for larger photos, on overlapping tiles so small faces in the background are not skipped. Each box is about a third bigger than the face, which takes in the hairline, the ears and the chin.
Boxes you can fix
Drag, resize or delete any box, or flip a selected one between rectangle and ellipse. From the keyboard, arrow keys nudge a box, Alt+arrow keys resize it and Delete removes it. ‘Add a box’ drops a fresh one in the middle of the picture, and ‘Remove all areas’ clears the lot.
A brush for the rest
Paint over a house number, a name on a badge, a street sign or a screen in the background. The brush size runs from 8 to 120, and whatever you paint gets the same effect as the faces.
Three effects
Blur has a strength slider and Pixelate a block-size slider, and bigger values hide more. Solid color fills the area flat, black to start with, in any shade you pick.
Review a whole set
The list shows how many faces each photo has. ‘Previous’ and ‘Next’ step through the set, a counter such as Photo 3 of 8 shows where you are, and ‘Hold to see original’ lets you compare before saving.
Same file type, no location
JPG, PNG and WebP photos come back as the same type. A phone's HEIC pictures, and also AVIF, GIF and BMP files, are saved as JPG, or as PNG when they have transparency. The name gets -blurred added, and location and other camera data are left behind.
Good to know
This is for the picture you are about to post: a crowd at a street fair, kids at a soccer game, a screenshot with a customer's name on it, a parked car with its plate in view. The saved file is a flat image. Every marked area has been replaced by blurred, pixelated or solid pixels, so there is no layer underneath to peel back.
How much to hide depends on who might look. A light blur or tiny blocks can leave a face recognizable and a plate readable, so go strong for anything sensitive, and use a solid color when nothing of the original may survive. Zoom into the preview and judge it the way a stranger would.
Automatic detection is quick but not flawless. Small faces, faces turned away and faces behind a hat or a hand can slip through, and sometimes a pattern gets a box. Check every photo, add boxes by hand, and press Ctrl+Z if you go too far. Photos above about 16.7 megapixels are reduced to the browser's limit, and the result line names the new size. The face finder needs WebAssembly SIMD, so iPhone and iPad need iOS 16.4 or later; without it you can still draw the boxes yourself.
Questions and answers
What is the quickest way to hide a face in a photo?
Add the photo and give it a moment while faces are found. Glance over the boxes, leave ‘Blur’ selected under ‘Effect’, and click ‘Blur and save’.
Is pixelating a face different from blurring it?
Yes. Pixelate turns each small square into one flat color, like a mosaic, while Blur smears neighboring pixels together. Set ‘Block size’ for the first and ‘Strength’ for the second.
A face was not boxed. How do I add it?
Drag across the picture to draw a box over it, or click ‘Add a box’ and move the new box into place. ‘Find faces again’ runs the search a second time. Faces that are small, turned away or partly covered are the ones that get missed.
Can I hide a license plate or a name on a sign?
Yes. Draw a rectangle over it or paint it out with the ‘Brush’; every marked area gets the effect you chose.
Is a blurred face really unrecognizable?
A light blur or small blocks may leave enough for someone to recognize a face or read a plate. A strong setting hides far more, and ‘Solid color’ hides an area completely.
Does the photo leave my device?
No. The face model is downloaded into your browser, and finding, hiding and saving all happen on your device.