Photo Censor

What it's for

Hide parts of a picture before sharing it: faces, number plates, names, addresses, account numbers or anything else on a screenshot or photo that shouldn’t be seen. The picture is worked on in your browser and never uploaded.

For example, before posting a screenshot of an error to a forum, choose it here, drag a box over your email address and the server name, and save the copy.

How to use it

Choose, drop or paste a picture, then drag across each part to hide; each drag makes a box. Drag a box to move it, or click it to select it (it turns red). Hide with sets how every box is hidden:

• A solid box fills it with the Box colour. This is the safe choice for text and numbers.
• Pixelation turns it into large squares, and Blur smears it; Strength sets how much.

Without a mouse: choose Add a box to put one in the middle, then with the picture focused, the arrow keys move the selected box, Shift and the arrows resize it (Alt for small steps), Delete removes it, and Escape deselects it. Save the picture downloads a copy with the boxes applied and -censored added to the name, as a JPEG or WebP if that’s what you chose, and as a PNG otherwise. The settings are remembered in the browser.

Example

Choose a screenshot of a bank statement. Drag a box over the account number and another over your address, leave Hide with on A solid box, and choose Save the picture. The saved copy shows black rectangles where those details were.

Good to know

Pixelated or lightly blurred text can sometimes be read back by software, so use a solid box for text, numbers and anything that matters. The saved picture is redrawn, so its metadata (such as GPS location) is left behind, and a JPEG is saved at 92% quality. Very large pictures (above about 16,000 pixels across) may be too big for the browser.