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Blur faces and text in photos

Find faces and text automatically, then blur, pixelate or cover them before sharing; detection and editing run in your browser.

Drop photos to blur faces & textor click to browse · faces are found automatically · up to 3 images free
Choose imagesProcessed on your device — never uploaded
Runs in your browser · no uploadHow it works

How to use Face & text blur

  1. 1

    Add photos

    Drop up to three photos or screenshots; faces are detected the moment each one loads.

  2. 2

    Find text

    Click Find text to cover licence plates, names, numbers and other words.

  3. 3

    Adjust the areas

    Untick anything to keep, and add rectangles, ellipses or brush strokes over the rest.

  4. 4

    Download

    Choose Blur, Pixelate or Solid box and save the image, or get every image as a ZIP.

Limits and Pro

Up to 3 images per batch, each up to 25 MB, with every effect, manual shapes and the ZIP download.

Batches of up to 500 images for automatic face blurring, plus files larger than 25 MB. See Pro

About Face & text blur

Face & text blur produces a copy of your image in which chosen areas are painted over with a strong blur, a mosaic of pixel blocks or a solid colour box. Everything outside those areas keeps its original pixels, and the export keeps the original resolution and format — JPG stays JPG and PNG keeps its transparency — while camera metadata such as GPS coordinates is dropped because the file is re-encoded.

Faces are found by a BlazeFace detector that scans the whole picture and overlapping tiles, so small faces in crowds and group photos are caught as well. Text detection uses OCR to locate words and merges them into line-shaped boxes. Each detection appears in a list you can switch on or off, every shape can be moved or resized with handles, and a freehand brush covers awkward objects such as tattoos, house numbers or papers lying on a desk.

Typical uses are anonymising bystanders before posting street photography, hiding children's faces, redacting names and email addresses from screenshots, and covering licence plates. Detection is not perfect — profile views, deep shadow, tiny print and stylised lettering can be missed — so look over the preview before sharing. For passwords, card numbers and ID documents choose Solid box, since blur and coarse pixelation can occasionally be partly reversed.

Privacy

Face detection, OCR and the blurring itself are computed on your device, so your file never leaves your device — which matters most when the whole point is protecting the people in the picture. The detector model and OCR language data come from public CDNs when first needed; the images you edit are never uploaded or stored.

Features

Automatic face detection

A multi-scale scan catches small faces in crowds and group shots.

Text detection

OCR finds plates, badges, emails and street names and boxes each line.

Shapes and brush

Rectangles, ellipses and freehand strokes with move and resize handles.

Three redaction styles

Blur, pixelate or a solid box, with adjustable strength.

Face & text blur: frequently asked questions

How do I blur faces in a group photo?
Add the photo and wait a moment: every face the detector finds gets an ellipse and is blurred straight away, including small faces in the background. Untick the faces you want to keep, draw an ellipse over any face that was missed, and pick Blur, Pixelate or Solid box. Then download the image in its original format and size.
Can blurred or pixelated text be recovered?
Sometimes, partly. Weak blur and large pixel blocks over short strings such as card numbers can be guessed by blurring candidate texts the same way and comparing the results. That is why strength goes up to 100% and why a Solid box effect exists: it replaces the pixels with one flat colour and leaves nothing to reconstruct. Use Solid box for anything confidential.
How do I hide a licence plate?
Click Find text and the plate's characters are usually detected as a line of text. When a plate is small, angled or dirty and is not found, switch to Rectangle and drag a box over it by hand. Pixelate at high strength or Solid box hides plates best; a light blur can leave the characters readable on high-resolution photos.
Does it change the rest of my photo?
No. Pixels outside the shapes you enable stay exactly as they were, and the image keeps its width, height and file format; transparency in PNG and WebP files is preserved. The file is re-encoded on export, so EXIF information such as the camera model, capture date and GPS location is removed, which is usually what you want before sharing.
How many images can I blur at once?
The free plan handles batches of up to three images: faces are detected in each one automatically, and you can adjust any of them before downloading all three in a ZIP. Pro removes that cap and accepts batches of up to 500 images, which suits event photographers, schools and newsrooms anonymising an entire shoot in one go.

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