How to blur a license plate in a photo
Step by step: upload a car photo, let the license plate be found and blurred, check the region and download at full size. Phone or laptop, five photos free.
Before you start
Have the photo on the device you are using, as a file. JPG, PNG, WebP and HEIC all work, so pictures from an iPhone go in as they are, with no converting first.
Start from the original, not a screenshot or a copy saved out of a chat app. Those are usually compressed, and the download comes back at the resolution you put in.
The steps are the same for one photo or many. Up to 20 photos fit in one batch, and a batch comes back as a single ZIP. There is no account to create. Five exports every 30 days are free; after that a pack of 40 costs $1.99, and credits never expire.
Step 1: upload the photo
Open the editor and pick your photos. Each file travels from your browser straight to private storage. Both the uploads and the finished files are deleted automatically.
You do not have to start the scan. When the upload finishes, every license plate that is found gets a region over it and is covered from the start with a plain dark box. Front plates and rear plates are handled the same way.
Step 2: check the plate region
Look at every photo before you download. Plates are found at the angles people usually shoot cars from, including a three-quarter view where the plate looks squashed. Check that no letter or digit shows past the edge of a region.
A plate can still slip through: one seen almost edge-on, half hidden behind a bike rack, or washed out by sun glare. When that happens, draw a region over it by hand. It takes a few seconds, and a region you draw starts out blurred.
Scan the background too. A second car in the driveway, a car parked across the street, or your own plate reflected in a shop window all need covering.
Then pick a style for each region. Detected plates start on Solid, the dark box. Switch a region to Blur for the least distracting look. Pixelate looks like a deliberate redaction. A sticker puts a graphic over the plate, so there is nothing left underneath to read.
Step 3: download
When every plate is covered, download. The file is full resolution, not a shrunken preview, so the car still looks crisp when a buyer zooms in on the paint.
Location data is stripped from the download. Most phones write GPS coordinates into each photo unless location is turned off for the camera, and a picture taken in your driveway carries the position of your home. The downloaded copy leaves those coordinates out.
A batch downloads as one ZIP with every photo inside. Unzip it and the files are ready to attach to a listing, a post or a message.
On a phone
Everything above works in a phone browser. When the file chooser opens, pick Photo Library on an iPhone or your gallery on Android. HEIC pictures are accepted without changing any camera settings.
On an iPhone, Safari saves the download to the Downloads folder in the Files app. To put it in Photos, open the file, tap the share icon and choose Save Image. A ZIP turns into a folder when you tap it in Files.
On Android, Chrome saves the file to Downloads, and Google Photos lists that folder under the photos on your device. From the share sheet on either phone you can also send a blurred photo to Messages, WhatsApp or email when a buyer asks for one more angle.