How to blur faces in photos on iPhone

Why the Photos app is not enough

Apple's Photos editor lets you crop, adjust and draw with Markup, but it has no tool that finds faces and blurs them for you. Drawing over faces by hand is slow and easy to get wrong, and a thin scribble can leave a face recognisable.

An automatic tool finds every face first, so you only decide who stays visible. That is faster for group shots and much harder to get wrong.

Option 1: the free FaceHush web tool

The FaceHush web tool runs face detection inside Safari using an on-device model. Your photo is processed by your iPhone's own processor and never sent to a server.

It is ideal for the occasional photo: one image at a time, four styles, and a download at full resolution. Downloads are re-encoded, so location and camera metadata from the original are not carried over.

Option 2: the FaceHush app

If you hide faces often, the FaceHush app is faster. It censors every face in a photo automatically, works offline, and needs no account.

• Blur and mosaic for video, with faces tracked as people move
• Several photos at once (3 on Free, up to 50 with Pro)
• A private face library that recognises people you always hide or always keep
• Mosaic, blur, emoji and solid cover for photos

Make sure the face is really hidden

Light blur or small mosaic blocks can leave a face recognisable, especially to software. For anything sensitive, use the strongest setting, a solid block or an emoji, and check hair, tattoos and name badges too.