The short answer
Open the picture in the tool below and drag a rectangle over each thing you want to hide: a face, a car plate, a name in a chat, an address on a parcel. Each area is hidden as soon as you release. Choose the effect: Blur, Pixelate or Black box, and set the strength. When everything is covered, download the image and share the new file, never the original.
The effect is painted into the pixels of the new image. There is no hidden layer and no copy of the original inside the downloaded file, which is what makes it safe to post.
Try it here: Censor image
Open the full tool pageBlack box, pixelate or blur: which one to use
All three hide information, but they do it differently, and the right choice depends on what is under the box. The rule of thumb: the less information there is to hide (a four digit PIN, a short code), the more complete the hiding has to be.
| Method | What happens to the pixels | Best for | Weak point |
|---|---|---|---|
| Black box | Replaced by solid black, nothing remains | Passwords, card and account numbers, IDs, codes, signatures | Looks harsh in photos |
| Pixelate | Replaced by large blocks of average color | Faces, plates, logos, crowds | Small blocks over short text can be guessed |
| Blur | Mixed with neighboring pixels | Faces and backgrounds where a soft look matters | Light blur keeps shapes readable |
Why weak blur can be reversed
Blur and pixelation do not delete information completely; they average it. If the hidden content is a face, the average of a strong blur says almost nothing. Text is different. A screenshot of a password uses a known font, a known size and a small set of possible characters, so someone can render many candidate texts, blur or pixelate them the same way and compare the result with your image. Researchers have published tools that recover pixelated text from screenshots exactly this way, and a famous criminal case was solved after police reversed a swirl filter on a suspect's face.
Other mistakes are even easier to exploit:
- A semi transparent highlighter or marker over text can often be read again by raising the contrast or brightness.
- A black rectangle drawn on a PDF usually sits on top of the text, which is still in the file and can be selected or copied.
- Some editors saved cropped data in the file: a 2023 bug in the Google Pixel screenshot editor and the Windows Snipping Tool left parts of the original image recoverable.
- Blurring only the first or last digits of a number still gives away the rest, and the visible part may be enough to identify an account.
- The original photo is often still in your camera roll, in cloud backup or in the chat where you first sent it.
Step by step on a phone and on a computer
On a computer, take the screenshot (Win+Shift+S on Windows, Cmd+Shift+4 on a Mac) and paste it straight into the tool with Ctrl+V or Cmd+V. Drag over each line or field. Zoom the browser page in if you need precision, and use Undo to remove the last area or Clear areas to start over. Each area also has a small cross to remove just that one.
On a phone, open this page in your browser, tap Choose image and pick the photo or screenshot from your gallery. Drag with your finger to select areas. Pinch zoom the page for small details such as a plate in the background. Download saves a new file next to the original; delete or keep the original as you prefer, but share only the edited copy.
The downloaded file keeps the format for JPG, PNG and WebP; other formats such as HEIC are saved as JPG. The name gets a suffix (for example photo-censored.jpg), so you can tell the copies apart.
Settings that actually hide things
The strength slider goes from 1 to 10 and scales with the size of the picture, so the same setting looks similar on a small screenshot and on a 12 megapixel photo. As a guide:
- Faces in the background of a photo: Blur or Pixelate at 5 or higher. Cover the whole head including hair, a face shape alone can be recognizable.
- Faces of children or anyone who must not be identified: Pixelate at 8 to 10, or a black box. Also check for name tags, school logos and reflections.
- License plates: Pixelate at 6 or higher over the full plate, including the country code and the frame.
- Text such as names, addresses, phone numbers and emails: Black box. If you prefer a softer look in a photo, use Pixelate at 10 and make sure no letter shapes are visible.
- Passwords, PINs, card numbers, IBANs, ID and ticket barcodes, QR codes: always Black box. A blurred QR code or barcode can sometimes still be scanned.
A checklist before you share
Look at the preview at full size, not only as a thumbnail. Things people often forget: the reflection of a face in a window or sunglasses, the same name in a notification bar or a browser tab, a plate on a second car, the address on a delivery label in the corner of the room, and the date and location in the photo's metadata. The image saved by this tool is a newly drawn picture, so the camera's location and device data are not carried over.
Finally, think about context. A blurred face next to a visible name, uniform or house number may still identify the person. Hiding personal data of other people is also good practice where privacy laws apply, for example in the EU under the GDPR, but the tool is not legal advice; when in doubt, hide more.