Screenshot Redactor
Black out what must not be seen — for real, not with a blur that can be undone.
About the Screenshot Redactor
Before you post a screenshot of a chat, a bank page, a ticket or an error message, the names, numbers and faces in it need to go. This redactor covers them with solid boxes — black, white or a colour of your choice — and saves a new image drawn pixel by pixel, so what was under the boxes is not in the file at all.
It deliberately has no blur or pixelate option. Researchers have shown that pixelated and blurred text can be read back by software (Hill et al., “On the (In)effectiveness of Mosaicing and Blurring as Tools for Document Redaction”); a solid box leaves nothing to reconstruct. Because the saved file is re-encoded from the canvas, it also leaves behind the photo’s EXIF data — GPS position, camera, date and time — which the tool lists so you know what was there. The picture never leaves your device.
How to use it
- Choose, drop or paste (Ctrl+V / ⌘V) the screenshot or photo.
- Drag across each part to hide. Drag a box to move it, or its corner handle to resize it; pick black, white or another colour in the toolbar.
- Check every box in the list, and fine-tune its position and size in pixels if you need to. Undo and Redo work as usual (Ctrl+Z, Ctrl+Shift+Z).
- Choose PNG (exact) or JPEG (smaller) and press Download redacted — or Copy image to paste it straight into a chat. The message under the boxes confirms the fill was checked.
Examples
A payment confirmation showing the payer’s name, UPI ID and transaction ID
Three black boxes over the name, UPI ID and transaction ID; a new PNG without the original’s metadata
A photo with GPS position, camera model and the time it was taken
The redacted JPEG keeps none of them; the tool lists what the original contained
Common uses
- Sharing a chat, an order or a payment screenshot without other people’s names and numbers.
- Posting an error message or a dashboard without account IDs, API keys or customer data.
- Sending a photo of an ID card, a bill or a form with only the parts that are needed visible.
- Removing the location and camera details a phone photo carries before you post it.
Why solid boxes, not blur
Blurring and pixelation keep part of the information: each block or blurred patch is still an average of the pixels underneath. Hill and colleagues showed that software can test candidate text against those averages and recover pixelated and blurred words, including long ones, across fonts and sizes — they concluded that neither is a viable way to redact text. A solid box replaces the pixels completely. Boxes here are snapped outwards to whole pixels, so even the edge pixels are fully covered rather than half blended.
What the saved file contains
Only the pixels you see: the image is drawn onto a fresh canvas, the boxes are filled on top, and the result is encoded as a new PNG or JPEG. Nothing from the original file — EXIF, GPS, XMP, comments, embedded thumbnails — is copied, and the tool strips any metadata block a browser might add on its own. Before saving, it reads every pixel inside each box back and checks that it is the solid fill colour.
The original file on your device is not changed. If you already sent it somewhere, that copy still contains everything.
Check before you share
- Look at the whole picture at full size: names also appear in avatars, tab titles, notifications and reflections.
- Cover the full width of a number or address — a few visible characters can be enough to look it up.
- Cropping is the safest redaction of all for edges of a picture: use the Image Cropper for parts you do not need.
- For text documents and PDFs use the PII Redactor or PDF Redact, which remove the text itself rather than covering a picture of it.
Limitations
- Very large images (over 8,192 × 8,192 pixels in area) are saved scaled down, because browsers on iPhones and iPads cannot draw larger canvases; the result says so when it happens. On that smaller copy each box is widened by three pixels, because scaling blends neighbouring pixels and could otherwise carry a trace of what was under a box into its edge.
- JPEG output is slightly lossy everywhere in the picture; choose PNG when the screenshot has small text you want to keep sharp.
- Animated GIFs are saved as a single still frame.
- Some privacy-focused browsers alter what scripts read back from a canvas. The boxes are still drawn solid before saving, but the tool then says that the exact colour check could not be confirmed.
Privacy
Everything happens in your browser. What you enter or open here is not uploaded or stored by MySmartCoPilot.
Frequently asked questions
Can someone remove the black boxes from the saved image?
No. The saved file is a new picture in which those pixels are simply black (or the colour you chose); the original pixels under them are not stored anywhere in it, in any layer. That is the difference from drawing a shape over text in a document editor, where the text often stays underneath.
Why is there no blur option?
Because blur and pixelation can be undone: research has shown that software can read pixelated and blurred text. A tool built for privacy should not offer an option that looks safe and is not.
Does the saved image still contain my location?
No. GPS position, camera, date and other EXIF or XMP data are not copied into the new file. If the original had any, the tool lists them after you open it, so you can see what was removed.
Is my screenshot uploaded?
No. It is opened, edited and saved in your browser; nothing is sent to MySmartCoPilot or anywhere else, and the page works offline once loaded.
Can I redact a PDF here?
Not directly — this tool works on images. Use PDF Redact for PDFs, so the text under the box is removed from the document as well.