--- title: "Redact Image – Black Out Text, Numbers or Plates, Free" description: "Hide an ID number, address, car plate or QR code in a photo or screenshot with a solid box, pixels or blur. Free, no sign-up, metadata removed." url: "https://imagecompressor.si/redact-image" lang: "en" --- # Redact part of an image Draw a box over what should not be seen, and download the picture with it covered for good. ## How it works 1. **Add your images** Drag and drop, paste, or pick files. They upload over an encrypted connection. 2. **Pick a quality or a target size** Use the quality slider, or tell it exactly how many KB or MB you need. 3. **Download** Save each file, or grab them all at once as a ZIP. Plenty of pictures carry a detail that should not travel with them. A photo of an ID card for a rental application shows the document number. A screenshot of a bank transfer shows the account. A picture of a parcel shows your home address on the label, and a street photo shows someone's number plate. Redacting means covering that detail before the file leaves your hands, so that whoever receives it sees that something was there but not what. Add one or more pictures, then drag across each part you want hidden. Every box you draw is covered in the result straight away; click a box to uncover it again if you drew it in the wrong place. When the picture looks right, download it on its own, or download every picture you added as one ZIP. The work is done on our server. The upload is deleted once the result is made, and the downloaded file carries none of the original's metadata, so camera details and location tags go too. ## Why a solid box is the safe choice A solid box replaces the pixels under it with one colour. Nothing of the original is left in the file, so there is nothing to recover. Blur and pixelation are different: they mix the pixels under them instead of removing them. For a face that is usually enough. For text it may not be, because a word or number blurred lightly, or pixelated in large blocks, can sometimes be matched back to its letters. That is why this page opens on the solid box and keeps black as its colour. Choose another colour if you want the box to blend with a light page, but keep it solid for anything a stranger could misuse. ## What people usually hide On identity documents: the document number, the personal number and the machine-readable lines at the bottom, which repeat both. On bank and payment screenshots: account numbers, card numbers and references. On delivery labels and letters: names, addresses and tracking codes. In photos taken outside: number plates and house numbers. On screens: email addresses, phone numbers and the QR codes that log in to accounts. ## Check before you send Nothing is detected automatically on this page, so what is covered is exactly what you covered. Zoom out and look over the whole result once more. Details hide in places that are easy to miss: a reflection in a window, a second copy of a number in small print, or the same address visible on another envelope in the background. If you also need to hide faces, the blur-faces tool finds them for you. ## Frequently asked questions ### Can a redacted area be undone? Not with a solid box. Its pixels replace the original ones in the downloaded file, which keeps no layer or copy of what was underneath. Pixelate and blur are weaker, as explained above. ### Is the original picture kept anywhere? No. It is sent to our server only to make the result and is deleted afterwards. We do not pass it to any other company. ### Does it also remove the photo's location? Yes. The result is written without the original's metadata, which is where a phone records the place, the time and the camera. Only the pixels are kept. ### Can I redact a PDF? Not on this page. You can turn a PDF's pages into pictures with our PDF to image tool, redact those, and make a PDF of them again, which leaves no hidden text behind. ### How many areas can I cover? Up to a hundred boxes on each picture. Several pictures can be done at once, each with its own boxes. ## Related tools - [Blur a face in a photo](https://imagecompressor.si/blur-face): Faces are found for you. Choose which ones to hide, and download the picture. - [Remove metadata from an image](https://imagecompressor.si/remove-image-metadata): Strip the location, camera details and other hidden data before you share a photo. - [Crop an image](https://imagecompressor.si/crop-image): Drag the rectangle, lock a ratio, or cut a circle.