Pixelate part of an image
Hide faces, license plates, addresses or account numbers before sharing a photo or screenshot: drag over the area you want to censor and it gets pixelated instantly. Nothing is uploaded — which is exactly what you want when the content is sensitive.
100% private: files are processed in your browser and never uploaded to any server.
How it works
- Drop an image into the box above — it opens in the editor.
- Drag a rectangle over each area you want to pixelate; adjust the pixel size if needed.
- Download the censored image (or hit Reset to start over).
What pixelation actually does
Pixelating divides a region into blocks and replaces each block with the average colour of everything inside it. Detail below the block size is discarded outright, and the result is the familiar mosaic. The block size is the only meaningful control: large blocks destroy more, small blocks leave more of the original shape visible.
It is genuinely destructive within the region — the fine detail is not hidden behind the mosaic, it is gone from the file. That distinguishes it from a blur applied in a layered editor, where the original may still be recoverable from the project file.
When pixelation is not enough to redact
This matters, so it is worth stating plainly. Pixelation is reliable for obscuring faces, license plates and general scenery. It is not reliable for redacting short, predictable text — a PIN, a card number, a name, a postcode. Because the possible content is limited, an attacker can pixelate every candidate string in the same way and compare the results until one matches. This has been demonstrated repeatedly against real redactions.
For anything that must genuinely not be recovered, cover it with a solid opaque block rather than pixelating it, and use a generous margin. Solid coverage removes the information instead of transforming it, and no comparison attack can undo it.
- Faces and vehicles in a street scene: pixelation is fine.
- A card number, PIN, phone number or address: use a solid block.
- A signature: use a solid block — the shape survives pixelation more than you would expect.
- Always work from a copy, and check the result at full size before sharing.
The metadata nobody remembers
Obscuring a region does nothing about what is stored alongside the pixels. Photographs routinely carry EXIF metadata including GPS coordinates, the camera's serial number and the exact capture time — so a carefully pixelated photograph can still disclose precisely where and when it was taken.
Re-encoding the image drops most of that metadata as a side effect, which helps, but if avoiding disclosure is the actual goal then verify rather than assume. And because everything here runs in your browser, the sensitive original is never uploaded in the first place — which is the point at which most redaction workflows quietly leak.
Good to know
Use a large pixel size when you are hiding text such as an account number or an address. Lightly pixelated text can sometimes be reconstructed, because the original characters leave a recoverable pattern; blocks large enough that no structure remains do not have that problem.
Each drag adds another censored zone, so you can cover several details in one pass — a face, a licence plate and a street sign — and Reset takes you back to the untouched original if you overdo it.
This is the tool where processing locally matters most. If you are censoring a screenshot precisely because it contains personal data, uploading it to someone else's server to do the censoring rather defeats the exercise. Here the file never leaves your device.
Frequently asked questions
Is pixelation safe for hiding sensitive data?
Use a large pixel size for text like account numbers — heavily pixelated text is not realistically recoverable. For maximum certainty, cover the area completely with a large pixel size so no structure remains.
Can I pixelate several areas in one image?
Yes — each drag adds another pixelated zone. Use Reset if you want to start from the original again.
Why pixelate in the browser instead of an online censor tool?
Because the whole point is privacy: here the screenshot with your personal data never leaves your device, instead of being uploaded to someone’s server to be censored.
Does the rest of the image lose quality?
No. Only the selected areas are modified; JPGs are re-saved at high quality and PNG output is lossless.
Can pixelated text be recovered?
Sometimes, yes. Short predictable strings such as PINs, card numbers or names can be recovered by comparing candidates pixelated the same way. Use a solid block for anything that must stay secret.
What block size should I use?
Large enough that no feature of the underlying content is recognisable — as a guide, a face should be reduced to no more than a handful of blocks across.