Pixelate Image
Pixelate image areas with a mosaic of square blocks: faces, number plates, usernames in a chat screenshot or anything else you want censored. Draw a box over each spot, set the block size, and download the result. Faces can be found for you by a small on-device detector, and the photo is processed in your browser, never uploaded.
- Runs on your device
- Canvas · GPU
- On-device AI
- Works offline
Updated
Drop your images here
How to pixelate part of an image
Step 1: Drop your photo or screenshot on the box above.
Step 2: Drag on the preview to draw a box over each area to censor; add as many as you need.
Step 3: Set Block size: higher gives fewer, bigger blocks. Switch on Also find faces automatically to add every face.
Step 4: Press Apply and download the pixelated image.
Good to know
Settings explained
- Block size
- Higher means bigger blocks: about 8 across each box at 60%, 5 at 100%.
- Also find faces automatically
- Adds a box over every face found by a tiny on-device face detector.
Formats
Batch-friendly: add many files and they are processed one after another — if one fails, the rest still finish.
How it runs
- GPU canvas
- Pixels are drawn and composited with the GPU-accelerated canvas.
- Vision model
- A compact computer-vision model runs locally in your browser. Nothing is sent to an AI service.
How big the blocks are at each setting
Block size is relative to each box, so a small box over a word and a large box over a face end up equally coarse. At the default 60%, any box is about eight blocks across; at 100% it is five. Each block is the average colour of the pixels under it.
| Block size | Blocks across any box | Block on a 120 px box (a word) | On a 400 px box (a face) | On a 1200 px box |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10% | 24 | 5 px | 17 px | 51 px |
| 30% | 13 | 9 px | 31 px | 93 px |
| 60% | 8 | 16 px | 52 px | 156 px |
| 80% | 6 | 20 px | 66 px | 198 px |
| 100% | 5 | 24 px | 80 px | 240 px |
Pixelate part of a photo: boxes and batches
Drag on the preview to draw a box; drag its corners to resize it or its middle to move it. Every box is pixelated on its own, so you can censor a face, a plate and a street sign in one pass. Each box shows a chequered hint of the effect while you draw; the real mosaic is applied when you press Apply. This image pixelator works the same on JPG, PNG, WebP and HEIC photos and on GIFs, which stay animated.
There is no button that pixelates everything without a box: to mosaic the whole picture, draw one box from corner to corner. With several photos, the boxes keep their relative position on each one, which works well for screenshots from the same app.
Pixelate a face in a photo
Switch on Also find faces automatically and the YuNet face detector, a small model that runs on your device, adds a box over each face it finds, enlarged slightly to cover hair and ears. Look over the result: small, turned or partly covered faces can be missed, and a box drawn by hand fixes that. For a softer look on faces, the blur image tool uses the same boxes with a blur instead.
Is pixelating safe for hiding text?
For long or unpredictable text, coarse pixelation is hard to read back. For short, predictable text, such as a name, a phone number or a few digits, it is not reliably safe: each block keeps the average colour of the pixels underneath, and people have reconstructed pixelated text by pixelating candidate words the same way and comparing the blocks. Fewer, bigger blocks make that harder, but not impossible.
For passwords, card numbers, IDs and anything else that must not leak, use a solid Black box in blur image. It replaces the pixels with black and leaves nothing to compare.
Pixelate vs blur: which is safer?
Neither is as safe as a black box, and at strong settings both hide faces well. Pixelation keeps a coarse grid of the original colours, while a strong blur smears them across a wider area; what matters most is that the setting is strong relative to the thing being hidden. Pick pixelation when you want the censored look to be obvious, and blur when you want it to blend into the photo.
- Faces in photos: either, at 60% or more.
- Names in chat screenshots: big blocks (80% or more), or a black box.
- Numbers, codes, addresses: black box only.
Tips & troubleshooting
Make each box a little larger than what it covers; letters and faces have soft edges that extend a few pixels further than you think.
Faces in a video? Blur faces finds and hides them frame by frame.
Before posting, also strip the photo’s GPS location with remove metadata from photo.
The saved mosaic cannot be undone, by you or anyone else, so keep the original if you may need an uncensored version later.
Pixelate Image FAQ
How do I pixelate part of an image?
Drop the image here, drag a box over each area, choose a block size and press Apply. Only the inside of the boxes is pixelated; the rest of the photo is untouched.
Is pixelating safe for hiding text?
Not for short, predictable text such as names or numbers, which can sometimes be guessed back from the blocks. Use a black box for anything sensitive; pixelation is fine for faces and general censoring.
Pixelate vs blur: which is safer?
At strong settings both hide faces well, and neither is as safe as a solid black box for text. Choose by look: pixelation is obviously censored, blur blends into the photo.
Can I pixelate the whole image?
Yes: draw one box over the entire picture. Block size is relative to the box, so at 100% the longer side of the picture becomes five blocks across; lower settings give a finer mosaic.
Can it pixelate faces automatically?
Yes. Switch on automatic face detection and every face the on-device detector finds gets a box. Add boxes by hand for any face it misses.
Is your image uploaded anywhere?
No. Your image is processed by your own browser on your own device. There is no server that receives files, so nothing is uploaded, stored or shared. You can even switch to airplane mode once the page has loaded.