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Street View Cleaner

To anonymize a street photo, cover every face and passer-by, every readable number plate, and anything that gives away the address, such as a house number or a street-name sign. Here each one is found and covered with a blur that is shrunk to a few colour cells first, so it cannot be sharpened back.

Photos
Drop photos here or click to browse
or paste from clipboard (Ctrl+V) · JPG, PNG, WebP, HEIC
Files stay in your browser. Nothing is uploaded.

How to blur people, plates and house numbers in a photo

  1. Add your photos

    Drop one or more JPG, PNG, WebP or HEIC photos, click to browse, or paste from your clipboard. Each photo is checked straight away.

  2. Choose what to cover

    Faces, whole people, licence plates, and house numbers with street signs are all on to start. Switch any of them off and its covers disappear from every photo.

  3. Check every photo

    Pick a photo from the strip to see it full size. Click a cover to remove it, or drag over anything still showing, such as a plate that was missed.

  4. Download

    Save one photo, or all of them in one ZIP. Each file keeps its name with -cleaned added, and HEIC photos come back as JPG.

Why use this tool

Five things, one pass

Faces, whole people, licence plates, house numbers and street-name signs are looked for in every photo, so a street scene comes out ready to post rather than half done.

People near and far

Each photo is checked whole and again in overlapping sections, so a person in the foreground and a passer-by far down the street are both found.

A blur that cannot be undone

Every cover is shrunk to a handful of colour cells before it is smoothed, so the detail is gone from the saved file. Solid black and large pixel blocks are there too.

Fix what it missed

Click a cover to remove it if it should stay visible. Drag over a missed plate, a name on a van, or a door number to cover that too.

Whole batches at once

Drop a folder of holiday or listing photos and they are checked one after another, with a thumbnail strip and one button to save them all as a ZIP.

Nothing leaves your browser

Photos are checked and blurred on your device. Saved copies carry no location, camera or date details from the original file.

About this tool

Travel snaps, street photography and property listings tend to show more than the photographer meant to: strangers walking past, the faces of people at the next table, the number plates of parked cars, and the house number or street sign that pins a home to a map. This tool looks for all of those in each photo, covers them with a heavy blur, and lets you check and correct every photo before you save it. It suits a listing that should not reveal the exact address, a travel post full of passers-by, or a street scene for a blog.

Some finds are more reliable than others. People and faces are found well, including small figures far down a street, though people half hidden behind others can be covered as one box or missed. Licence plates are best effort: each vehicle that is found is searched for a plate, which works for most plates seen from the front or back and misses some, especially bold yellow plates, plates inside lettered frames, and plates at a steep angle. Small cars further away where no plate is found get the lower part of the car covered instead. House numbers and street signs are read like text, so large, clear ones are found and small, decorative or sharply angled ones are often missed. Look over every photo before sharing it and drag over anything still showing.

Saved photos keep their format (HEIC becomes JPG) and carry none of the original metadata, such as GPS location. To cover only faces, use Face Blur. To blur a whole picture, use the image blur tool. To strip location data from photos without changing them, use the metadata stripper.

Frequently asked questions

How does it find people, plates and house numbers?
Three checkers run on each photo in your browser. One finds faces. One finds people and vehicles, looking at the whole photo and at overlapping sections so small figures are not missed, and each vehicle is then searched for a plate. One reads the text in the photo and picks out lone numbers on walls and doors and signs that name a street.
Are my photos uploaded anywhere?
No. Photos are read, checked and blurred in your browser and never sent to a server. The checkers themselves, about 50 MB in all, download the first time you use the tool and stay saved in your browser after that.
Will it find every licence plate?
No, plates are best effort, so check every car before you share a photo. Most plates seen from the front or back are found, but in testing about one in four was missed, mostly bold yellow plates, plates in lettered frames and plates at a steep angle. Some covers also land on badges or lights instead. Drag over any plate still showing to cover it.
Will it find every house number and street sign?
Not always. Large, clear numbers and signs are found, but small, decorative, faded or sharply angled ones are often missed, and shop signs are left alone on purpose. Check the doors and walls in each photo and drag over anything that gives away the address.
Can the blur be reversed?
No. Each area is shrunk to a few colour cells before the blur is applied, so the detail is thrown away rather than smudged. The solid black style removes everything, and the pixelate style uses blocks too large to rebuild a face or a plate from.
Which files can I use, and are there limits?
JPG, PNG, WebP and HEIC photos, as many as you like in one go. Files keep their format when saved, except HEIC, which is saved as JPG. Photos over about 24 megapixels are scaled down to fit browser limits, and files over 100 MB are not opened. Each photo takes several seconds to check, longer on a phone.

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