Image Compressor
Shrink JPG, PNG and WebP with a quality slider and live size readout.
Image & Photo
Blur & Pixelate Image
Redact faces, plates and details — properly, not with a shape.
What it does. Blurring and pixelating here replace the pixels themselves, so the original detail is gone from the file. That is different from drawing a black box in most image editors, which can leave the original data underneath in a layer — and different again from covering text in a PDF, where the text remains fully recoverable.
Runs in your browserNothing uploadsNo signupWorks offline
How to use Blur & Pixelate Image
- Drop in an image and drag over the areas to hide.
- Choose blur or pixelate, and how strong.
- Download — the exported pixels are destroyed, not covered.
Pixelation can sometimes be reversed
This is worth knowing before relying on it. Pixelation averages a block of pixels to a single colour, which is a lossy but deterministic transformation.
Where the hidden content is from a small known set — a number plate, a date, a six-digit code — an attacker can render every candidate, apply the same pixelation, and compare. This has been demonstrated repeatedly against pixelated text.
Strong Gaussian blur is harder to attack than pixelation, and neither is as safe as a solid fill. For text that genuinely must not be recovered, use a solid block rather than any reversible effect.
Choosing the method
| Method | Reversible? | Use for |
|---|---|---|
| Solid fill | No | Text, codes, anything that must be certain |
| Heavy blur | Very difficult | Faces, backgrounds |
| Pixelation | Sometimes | Faces where the look matters |
| Light blur | Often | Aesthetic only — not redaction |
Match the strength to the content. A face blurred lightly is still recognisable to someone who knows the person, which is usually exactly who you were hiding it from.
Strip the metadata too
Redacting the visible image does nothing about what the file carries alongside it. A photo with a blurred house number can still contain the GPS coordinates of that house.
Some cameras and phones also embed a small thumbnail in EXIF, generated at capture — and that thumbnail is not updated when the image is edited.
That thumbnail problem has caused real disclosures: an image cropped or redacted, with the original visible in the embedded preview. Run the EXIF remover after redacting, not before.
Frequently asked questions
Can pixelation be reversed?
Sometimes. Where the hidden content is from a small known set — a number plate, a date, a short code — an attacker can render candidates, apply the same pixelation and compare. This has been demonstrated against pixelated text repeatedly.
What is safest for hiding text?
A solid fill. Blur and pixelation are transformations of the original data; a solid block replaces it with nothing. For anything that must not be recovered, use solid.
Is this better than drawing a black box in an editor?
It depends on the editor. Here the pixels are replaced in the exported file. Some editors keep the original in a layer, and a flattened export is required to actually destroy it.
Do I still need to remove EXIF?
Yes. A blurred house number does not remove the GPS coordinates from the file — and some cameras embed a thumbnail at capture that is not updated when you edit, which has leaked unredacted originals.
Is my image uploaded?
No. Everything happens on the canvas in your browser, which is the only sensible design for a tool whose purpose is hiding things.