Redact private details — free online tool
Paint over names, faces or numbers and pixelate them in blocks of 6 to 48 px. Brush 8 to 160 px, mark and erase modes. Fully manual, in your browser.
The preview will appear here after you select a file.
What to know
Redaction here is entirely manual: there is no automatic detection of faces, plates or text. You paint over the sensitive area with a brush and the tool replaces it with a mosaic. The Brush size slider runs from 8 to 160 px with 44 as the default, and Pixel size runs from 6 to 48 with 18 as the default. Mark area paints, Erase mark undoes a stroke that went too far, and Clear all marks starts again.
The brush is measured in screen pixels, not image pixels. On a 4000 px wide photo shown 800 px wide in the preview, a brush of 44 covers about 220 image pixels. The mosaic is then built on a fixed grid starting at the top left: every block of the chosen size that your stroke touches, even by one pixel, is filled with the average color of that whole block, so the pixelated area can extend up to one block past the edge of the stroke.
Pixel size controls how much survives. With 18 px blocks a 180 px wide plate becomes only 10 blocks across, which is unreadable, while 6 px blocks leave much more of the original structure. Pixelation is not encryption, and fine mosaics over small text can sometimes be partly guessed, so use large blocks for anything that matters and view the result at full size before sharing it.
Apply with no marks and the tool tells you to brush over an area first. The export keeps the source format at quality 0.92 and is drawn fresh, so camera metadata such as GPS coordinates is not carried into the copy. Your original file is never modified.
Choose a specific task 7
Related tools 13
How to use Redact private details — free online tool
- Add the image and keep Mark area selected.
- Set Brush size to about 44 and Pixel size to 24, then paint over the area to hide.
- Use Erase mark to trim an overshoot, or Clear all marks to start again.
- Press Redact marked areas, zoom to full size to check, and download.
Quick answers
Does the tool find faces or license plates by itself?
No. Every area is marked by hand with the brush, and nothing is detected automatically.
Why does the mosaic extend beyond my brush stroke?
The mosaic is built from a fixed grid of blocks. Any block touched by the stroke is replaced as a whole, so the edge can run up to one block past it.
Is a pixelated area safe to share?
It hides detail but is not a guarantee. Fine mosaics over small text can sometimes be partly reconstructed, so use bigger blocks, inspect at full size, and consider covering critical data another way.
Why is my brush larger than I set it?
The brush size is in preview pixels. On a high-resolution photo displayed smaller than its real size it covers proportionally more of the image.