Blur faces and redact photos on your Mac, without uploading
By Himanshu Ranjan · Updated 8 November 2026
To hide sensitive parts of a photo on a Mac with FileDial, select it in Finder, hold the right Option key and choose Privacy › Redact by hand…, then draw boxes over faces, names or numbers. The boxes are burned in and metadata is removed in the new copy. To blur faces instead, choose Markup › Blur faces. Both run on your Mac.
How to do it with FileDial
- Select the photo in Finder.
- Hold right ⌥ to open the dial.
- Choose Privacy › Redact by hand… and draw boxes over what should be hidden.
- Share the new copy; the boxes are burned in and metadata is removed.
- To soften faces rather than box them out, choose Markup › Blur faces for a new copy beside the original.
Your original file stays untouched. The result is saved beside it, and every result has Undo.
Which option to pick
| Tool | Use it when |
|---|---|
| Blur facesMarkup | For bystanders in street, event or group photos: a copy with faces blurred, saved beside the original. |
| Redact by hand…Privacy | To hide faces, plates, names or numbers in a photo: solid boxes burned in, metadata removed. |
Blurring versus redacting: what actually hides information
Blurring softens an area so a face is no longer recognisable at a glance. It is the familiar look for bystanders in street, event and school photos, where you want to keep the scene but not the identities. For casual privacy, a blur is usually enough.
For anything that truly must not be read, such as account numbers, addresses, ID cards, licence plates or a document on a desk, solid boxes are the safer choice. Light blurs and pixelation of text can sometimes be partly reversed or guessed, especially for short strings like numbers. A solid block has nothing underneath to recover.
Two details decide whether a redaction holds. The box must be burned into the pixels, not floating as a removable annotation layer, and the file's metadata should go too, since it can include location and the original capture details. Redact by hand… does both.
- Bystanders' faces: blur is usually enough.
- Numbers, names, documents: use solid boxes.
- Always share a flattened copy, not an annotated original.
Why not redact with an online photo editor
The point of redacting is that some people should not see what is in the photo. Uploading the unredacted original to a website defeats that before you start. The FBI warned in March 2025 that free online file tools are increasingly used to return files carrying malware and to scrape personal data such as identity numbers and banking details.
Uploaded originals can also leak later. Cybernews reported in July 2024 that 89,062 files uploaded to two online PDF services, including passports and IDs, were left exposed in open cloud storage. FileDial redacts on your Mac and works offline.
Other ways to blur or redact on a Mac
Preview's markup tools let you draw a shape over part of an image and fill it with a solid colour, then export a copy. That works for a quick job, but make sure you export to a flattened image format like JPG or PNG so the shape cannot be moved, and remember that the copy may still carry metadata. Blurring a face by hand in Preview is not really practical.
FileDial is better when you need redactions you can trust: boxes are burned in and metadata is removed in one step, the original stays untouched for your records, and Undo is available. Blur faces runs on a whole batch of photos at once, so a set of event pictures can be prepared in one pass. FileDial also has PDF and video versions of these privacy tools.
Questions
Can someone remove the boxes from a redacted copy?
Redact by hand… burns solid boxes into the image, so there is no separate layer to delete, and it removes metadata in the same copy. Your original is kept separately, so only share the redacted copy.
Does Blur faces work on my Mac or in the cloud?
On your Mac. Markup › Blur faces saves a new copy beside the original, and nothing is uploaded at any point. Like every FileDial tool, it works with Wi‑Fi off.
Is the original photo changed?
No. Both tools create a new copy and leave the original as it was, which is useful if you need the unredacted version for your records. Undo on the result card removes the copy.
Should I blur or box out a licence plate or ID number?
Use solid boxes with Privacy › Redact by hand… Blurred or pixelated text can sometimes be guessed, especially short numbers, while a solid burned-in box leaves nothing underneath to recover.