How to Blur Faces on iPhone (Photos and Videos)

iPhone has no "blur face" button. Photos can hide a face in a still picture if you know where to look, but nothing built in blurs faces in a video. Here is what works for each case, starting with the quickest.

Blur a face in a photo with Clean Up

On iPhones with Apple Intelligence (iPhone 15 Pro and newer, iOS 18.1 or later), the Clean Up tool in Photos has a hidden privacy feature: brush over a face and it is pixelated instead of erased.

1. Open the photo in Photos and tap Edit.
2. Tap Clean Up. The first time, it downloads a small model.
3. Circle or scribble over the face. Photos covers it with a pixel block.
4. Repeat for each face, then tap Done.

Good to know:

• It is pixelation, not a soft blur, and you cannot change its size or strength.
• Apple has not documented it and has added no setting to turn it on or off. Users report that zooming in changes how the tool reacts, so if a face gets erased instead of pixelated, undo and try again at normal zoom.
• It only works on photos. Clean Up is not available for videos.
• The edit can be reverted later in Photos, so share an exported copy, not the original in your library.

Cover a face with Markup

On any iPhone, Markup can cover a face, but it does not blur it.

1. Open the photo, tap Edit, then the Markup (pen) icon.
2. Pick the marker, set the thickest line and full opacity.
3. Paint over the face until nothing shows through, or add a filled shape from the + menu.

It is quick for one face, but it looks rough and you have to cover every pixel by hand. A thin or semi-transparent stroke can leave the face readable.

Blur faces in a photo automatically

If the photo has several people, or you want a real blur, use the free photo face blur. Open it in Safari or Chrome on your iPhone:

1. Tap the upload box and pick the photo from your library.
2. Every face is found and blurred automatically.
3. Tap a face to keep it clear, for example your own. Drag a box over anything that was missed.
4. Choose blur, pixelate or black box and tap Download photo.

The photo is processed inside your browser and never uploaded.

Blur faces in a video on iPhone

This is where the built-in apps stop. Photos cannot edit faces in a video, and iMovie for iPhone has no blur effect. Your options:

• A video editor app with masks. Some third-party editors let you place a blur shape and move it by hand with keyframes. It works, but a 30-second clip at 30 frames per second is 900 frames, and every time the person moves you have to adjust the shape.
• YouTube Studio's blur tool, if the video is going to YouTube anyway. It only works after upload, on a computer. See do you have to blur faces on YouTube.
• An automatic face blur. FaceBlur finds every face in the video, follows it as it moves and lets you pick who stays clear: you, the person you are interviewing, or anyone else.

To use FaceBlur on a video from your iPhone:

1. Open faceblur.org and tap Upload a video to blur faces. Choose the clip from your library.
2. Wait for the scan. Each person appears as a thumbnail.
3. Tap the people who should stay clear. Everyone else is blurred.
4. Play the preview, then tap Blur & download under Private mode.

Private mode does the whole job inside your browser, so the video never leaves your phone. It is free.

Phones are slower than computers at this. In our tests a 1-minute 1080p clip took about a minute on a recent laptop, and a phone will take longer. For anything longer than a minute or two, AirDrop the clip to a Mac and run it there. If your phone's browser cannot encode video, the page tells you so instead of failing silently.

Check before you post

Automatic detection is good at faces looking towards the camera and weaker at faces turned to the side, partly hidden, or very small in the background. In our own test on eight clips, about 1 in 10 faces was missed in at least one frame, almost all of them side-on or tiny. Watch the result once before you share it. If a face slips through, trim that moment out or cover it with a black box in your editor before posting.

Quick answers

Can I blur a face in the iPhone Photos app? Only in photos, through the Clean Up pixelation trick on Apple Intelligence iPhones, or by covering it with Markup.

Can iMovie blur faces? No. iMovie on iPhone has no blur or mosaic effect.

Is there a free way to blur faces in a video on iPhone? Yes: FaceBlur's Private mode is free and runs in your browser.