Pixelate anything
Pixelate an image, a photo, a face or a whole video — free, instantly, and without uploading a single byte. Or turn any picture into retro pixel art.
💜 Donate $5+ and we'll turn off all ads for a year 💜 Ad-free supporter mode — thank you!
ℹ️ Ads keep Pixelateme free — quick tips to get the most out of the site
Pixelateme has no paywall and no account system. The ads you see are what pay for the servers, so everything stays free with no sign-up. A few tips so they never get in your way:
- A sponsor tab or popup may open the first time you click or tap. Just close it and come back — your image is untouched, since everything happens right in your browser.
- The real controls are the ones in the editor above. Anything labeled “sponsored” is an ad, and no feature here ever requires clicking one.
- On ad pages, stay safe: if one claims “your download is ready”, asks you to install software, or requests personal details — just close it. Your finished image saves directly from this page (nothing is ever uploaded), and we never ask for personal info.
- Prefer no ads at all? Donate $5+ and ads switch off for a full year.
Drop an image or video
or browse files · max 15MB
LIVE PREVIEW
Drop a photo of people
or browse files · stays on your device
How it works
Upload
Drop in a photo or video — it never leaves your browser.
Pixel Art or Hide Faces
Make retro pixel art, or pixelate faces for privacy.
Tune it
Set pixel size & palette, or auto-detect / draw over faces.
Download
Save your result as PNG (or animated GIF for video).
Why Pixelateme
100% private
Everything runs on your device — no uploads, no accounts.
Hide faces fast
Auto-detect faces or draw boxes to pixelate people & objects.
Retro palettes
Gameboy, NES & CGA looks with optional dithering.
Video → pixel GIF
Turn clips into animated pixel art with adjustable FPS.
Pixelate an image or photo online — free
Drop in a picture and Pixelateme pixelates it in your browser. Pixelate the whole image for a retro look, or switch to Hide Faces and pixelate only the parts that matter — a face, a name badge, a licence plate, a screen. Drag the pixel-size slider to decide how coarse the blocks get, then download a PNG. There is no sign-up, no watermark and no upload queue, because there is no upload: pixelating an image here happens entirely on your own device.
Pixelate faces online — free & private
Need to hide a face in a photo before you share it? Switch to Hide Faces, upload your picture, and either auto-detect faces or drag a box over each one. It handles multiple faces and works on objects like licence plates, tattoos or documents too. Prefer a soft look or a hard block? Blur the faces instead, or drop a solid black bar over them.
Because everything runs locally, your photos are never uploaded — which makes it safe for pictures of children, colleagues, medical documents and anything else you would not hand to a stranger's server.
Turn images & video into pixel art
Prefer the retro look? Pixel Art mode converts any image into crisp pixel art with authentic Game Boy, NES and CGA palettes, adjustable pixel size and dithering. Feed it a short clip instead and it will pixelate the video frame by frame and export an animated GIF. Want to pixel yourself into an avatar? That works too — a selfie in, a pixel-art portrait out.
What does “pixelate” actually mean?
To pixelate an image is to enlarge its pixels — replacing each small block of the picture with a single flat colour, so detail is destroyed and only coarse shapes survive. A picture that has been through this is pixelated; the act of doing it is pixelating, and the effect itself is called pixelation (sometimes spelled pixellation). It is used for two very different reasons: deliberately, to censor something or to create a retro pixel-art style, and accidentally, when an image is scaled up past its real resolution and goes blocky.
The word gets typed a lot of different ways — pixelate, pixilate, pixellate, pixelize, pixelfy — and the tools get called pixelators, pixelizers or just “that thing that makes photos blocky”. They all mean the same thing, and this page does all of it.
Frequently asked questions
How do I pixelate an image?
Drop your picture into the box above, drag the Pixel Size slider until it looks right, and hit Download. If you only want to pixelate part of it, switch to Hide Faces and drag a box over just that area.
How do I pixelate a face in a photo?
Open the Hide Faces mode, upload your photo, then click “Auto-detect faces” or drag a box over each face. Pixelateme pixelates just those areas — download the result as a PNG.
Can it pixelate multiple faces at once?
Yes. Auto-detect finds and pixelates every face it sees, and you can draw a box over any extra faces or objects to hide them too.
Are my photos uploaded to a server?
No. All processing happens locally in your browser — your images never leave your device, so it’s completely private.
Is Pixelateme free?
Yes, Pixelateme is 100% free, with no sign-up and no watermarks.
Can I blur faces instead of pixelating them?
Yes. Choose Pixelate, Blur, or a solid Black bar for each selected area, and adjust the strength to taste.
What does “pixelate” mean?
Pixelating an image means enlarging its pixels so that fine detail is replaced by flat blocks of colour. It is done on purpose to censor something or to make retro pixel art, and it happens by accident when a small image is blown up too far.
Is “pixel me” the same thing?
Usually not. People searching pixel me or pixelme are normally after a pixel-art portrait of themselves rather than a censored photo — that lives on the Pixel Me page. If you meant hiding your face, stay here and use Hide Faces.
What can I download, and does it work on mobile?
Images export as PNG and videos export as animated GIF. It works in any modern browser on desktop, iPhone and Android.
People also ask
Can a pixelated image be un-pixelated or reversed?
Not in the sense people usually mean. Pixelation throws the original pixels away, so there is nothing left to restore. What the “unpixelate with AI” tools do is generate a plausible-looking face or texture that would pixelate down to the same blocks — an invention, not a recovery. A widely reported 2020 face-upscaling demo made the point badly and publicly when it turned a pixelated photo of a well-known Black politician into a white man. Treat their output as a guess, never as evidence of what was underneath.
Do I have to blur strangers’ faces in photos I post?
It depends where you are and why you are publishing, and this is not legal advice — but the direction of travel is clear. Under the GDPR a recognisable face counts as personal data, so publishing an identifiable stranger without a lawful basis can be a violation, including for photos taken in public. Anonymising the image is the usual answer when consent is not practical. Plenty of places outside the EU have narrower rules, and journalism and personal use are often treated differently. If in doubt, blur them — it costs you nothing and it is what most publishers do.
What is the difference between pixelate, blur and a mosaic?
“Pixelate” and “mosaic” are the same effect under two names: the area is divided into a grid and each cell is flattened to one average colour, giving hard-edged blocks. Blur instead smears each pixel into its neighbours, producing a soft smudge with no edges. Pixelation looks deliberate and is easier to judge at a glance, which is why it is the default for censoring faces; blur looks gentler and less like a redaction. Neither is safe for text.
My photo went pixelated on its own and I want it fixed — can this help?
No, and it is worth being straight about that: this tool adds pixelation on purpose. If your picture went blocky by itself, the usual causes are a low-resolution original being displayed larger than its real size, a site re-compressing your upload, or generation loss from a file that has been saved and re-uploaded many times. The fix is to go back to the highest-resolution original you have and upload it at the size it will actually be shown — not to run it through an editor.
Do free online pixelate tools upload and keep my photos?
Most of them do — they receive your file, process it on their servers and hand back a link, which means a copy exists on someone else’s machine, usually under terms that let them retain it. That is a poor trade when the reason you are pixelating is that the image shows something private. Pixelateme is built the other way round: the work is done by your own browser with the Canvas API, so nothing is transmitted. If you want to prove it, load this page, switch off your network, and it still works.
Is there a catch — a watermark, a sign-up, or a paid tier?
No. Every feature is free, there is no account, nothing is watermarked, and there is no resolution or export limit beyond the 15 MB input cap. The site is paid for by the ads you see, and a $5 donation turns those off for a year. That is the entire business model.