How to hide part of a picture
Choose a picture, then drag on it to draw a box over the thing you want to hide: a face, a name, a number plate, an address, a screen with a message on it. Each box is pixelated at first; tap it to switch it to Blur or a solid Black box, make it an Ellipse (good for faces), or change its strength. Drag a box to move it, drag a corner to resize it, and press Delete box to remove it. Undo steps back one change at a time. The settings you pick are used for the next box you draw.
Blur whole picture softens everything, for a background or a preview you don’t want to show in detail; boxes still go on top. Press Download to save the result. Hide outlines shows the picture without the dashed box edges, so you can check what others will see.
With a keyboard, tab to the picture: arrow keys move the selected box (hold Alt for small steps), Shift with the arrows resizes it, Delete removes it, and Ctrl+Z (or ⌘Z) undoes.
Which effect is safest?
For text, use a black box. It replaces the pixels with solid black, so there is nothing left to recover. A weak blur or a fine pixelation can sometimes be reversed or guessed, especially for short text like a number plate or a phone number, because there are only so many ways it could have looked. If you use blur or pixelate on text, turn the strength up until you can’t read even a single letter, and make the box a little bigger than the text. For faces, a strong pixelate or blur is usually enough.
The saved file only has the hidden version: the effect is painted into the pixels, not laid on top. Check the photo’s other details too, like reflections, name tags, house numbers and anything on a screen in the background.
Questions
Is my picture uploaded? No. It is opened, changed and saved inside your browser. Does the saved file keep the original? No, and it keeps no location or camera details either, since the picture is redrawn. Keep your own copy of the original if you need it. PNG or JPG? PNG keeps every pixel and transparency; JPG makes smaller files and is fine for photos. Why can’t I open my iPhone photo? Browsers can’t open HEIC; share or export it as JPG first, or use the Image Converter.