How to blur faces in photos
- Drag your photos into the tool or click to browse. JPEG, PNG and WebP work, and you can add several at once.
- The Process All button becomes available once the detection model has loaded. The first time, that can take a little while.
- Choose an effect: blur, pixelate, bar or mask. Set the intensity, and for the mask choose a colour. Then click Process All; with auto-detect on, faces are found for you.
- Compare the editable view with the result preview. If a face was missed, draw a box or a freehand shape over it to cover it manually.
- Download the results as a ZIP. Each file is saved as a JPEG with "blur-" at the start of its name.
Which effect should you use?
| Effect | What it does | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Blur | Softens the area; strength is adjustable | Casual privacy, natural-looking results |
| Pixelate | Turns the area into large blocks | A clear "censored" look |
| Bar | Draws a black bar across the eye area only | A classic "eye bar" look; the rest of the face stays visible |
| Mask | Fills the whole detected area with a colour you choose | Sensitive images: fully covers the face |
If the photo matters, do not rely on a light blur. Detail can sometimes be partly recovered or guessed from a mild blur, so use a high intensity, or the mask, for anyone who must not be identified. The bar effect alone is not enough for that.
What automatic detection can and cannot do
Automatic detection is a shortcut, not a guarantee. It works best on clear, front-facing faces in decent light. It can miss faces that are small, in profile, turned away, very dark, blurry or partly covered, and occasionally it picks something that is not a face. Always look at the preview before you download, and add manual selections for anything it missed.
Before you share the photo: remove the metadata too
Hiding a face does not hide where the photo was taken. Phone photos often carry GPS coordinates and a timestamp. Downloading from this tool saves each image again as a new JPEG, but for a full clean-up and a check, run photos through the EXIF remover as well.
Private, free, and where the limits are
Your photos stay on your device, and there is no account, fee or watermark. Face detection needs a one-time download of the model when you first use it, so you need an internet connection at that point. It only handles still images, not video, and large batches depend on your computer's memory. For a fuller walkthrough, see how to blur faces in photos without uploading them. Related tools: image compressor and image resizer.