GUIDE

How to blur a face in a photo

Free, in your browser, about 20 seconds. No app install, no upload, no watermark.

Do it now: open the censor tool
Drop your photo, drag over the face, download. Nothing leaves your device.
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The 20-second method

  1. Open the photo at blurthat.com — drop it on the page or paste with Ctrl+V. On a phone, tap the drop zone and pick from your library.
  2. Drag a box over the face. The default effect is pixelation, which is what you want for faces (more on why below). For a tilted head, hair you also want covered, or a face at the edge of the frame, switch to BRUSH and paint instead.
  3. Raise the strength until it's actually gone. Zoom your eyes in and be honest. A face that fills a quarter of a phone photo needs block size ~20+. If you can still read an expression, it's not anonymized.
  4. Download PNG or JPG. The export is re-encoded, which strips EXIF metadata — including the GPS coordinates your phone quietly embedded.
The one mistake people make: a gentle, cinematic blur. It looks respectful and hides nothing — modern upscalers and face-matching tools can work with it, and anyone who knows the person can often still recognize gait, hairline, and context. Blur less politely. Big blocks or a solid bar.

Pixelate, blur, or bar — which one for faces?

Pixelate is the standard for faces: it reads as deliberate anonymization (viewers understand the person is hidden on purpose) and at strong settings it destroys the geometry face-recognition needs.

Blur looks softer in aesthetic contexts — crowd shots, background strangers — but needs a high radius to do real work. If the face is the subject of the photo, prefer pixelation.

Bar is the blunt instrument: total removal, no ambiguity. Use it when the stakes are real (legal contexts, minors, safety) or when you also need to kill text like a name tag. Our redaction guide covers why bars beat blurs whenever text is involved.

Common cases

  • Kids in photos you're posting publicly — pixelate at high strength, or bar. Their face, their future say in the matter.
  • Bystanders in a photo you want to share — brush + medium pixelation over each face; it signals care rather than paranoia.
  • Marketplace listings — people forget the reflections: check mirrors, windows, glossy screens, and the framed family photo on the shelf behind the couch.
  • Group photo where one person didn't consent — pixelate just them; the brush handles overlapping heads better than a box.

Why this beats an app

Face-blur apps generally upload your photo to someone's server for processing — an odd deal for an image you're trying to make more private, and a second copy of the photo now exists somewhere with unknown retention. BlurThat runs in the browser tab: load the page, go offline if you like, the tool keeps working. It's also free without a catch — no signup after you've done the work, no watermark.

Blur the face now
Free · no upload · EXIF stripped on export
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Questions

Can a blurred face be unblurred?
Light blurs — sometimes, partially, especially when the searcher already suspects who it is. Heavy pixelation (face reduced to a handful of blocks) or a solid bar can't be meaningfully reversed. When it matters, be heavy-handed.
How do I blur a face on iPhone without an app?
Open blurthat.com in Safari and use it there — it works in the mobile browser. One catch: HEIC photos (the iPhone default format) can't be decoded by browsers, so share/export the photo as JPG first.
Do I legally have to blur strangers' faces?
Depends on where you are and where you're posting. Public photography is broadly legal in many places, but publishing identifiable people has privacy implications in others (much of the EU, for instance), and platforms add their own rules. Blurring bystanders is the safe, polite default.

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