Skip to main content

Digital Trends may earn a commission when you buy through links on our site. Why trust us?

How to blur faces in pictures before sending them on Signal

Signal has emerged as the messaging app of choice for millions of people who are protesting against racism and police brutality across the United States. Protesters have rushed to the encrypted chat app to ensure their communications can’t be tapped or accessed if they’re taken in custody by law enforcement agencies — propelling Signal to the top of the Android and iOS app stores.

To further buttress its utility and support protesters, Signal has rolled out a tool inside its instant messaging app that lets anyone blur out faces in pictures with a click of a button before sending them. The addition is designed for people who are actively employing Signal to share images of large-scale protests and want to continue to do so without compromising identities of the people in the photos.

Signal blur faces tool

Signal’s new blurring tool is fairly straightforward to use:

  1. Visit the iOS App Store or Google Play Store to download the messaging app’s latest version.
  2. Once it’s installed, launch the app.
  3. Head over to the chat where you’d like to share a picture.
  4. Upload a picture by either clicking a new one with the little camera button or import from your phone’s gallery from the blue plus menu.Signal blur tool option toolbar
  5. On the next page, tap the blur option located on the right of the pen icon.
  6. Flip the switch at the bottom and Signal will automatically blur all the faces it detects in the photograph. If that doesn’t work as you’d expected it to, you can manually draw over faces to mask them.

You don’t have to limit this tool to faces either. You can take advantage of it to conceal, for instance, a piece of sensitive information in a document or an identifiable landmark to prevent disclosing your location. Hit the tick at the top right once when you’re done and press send to forward it to the contact.

Signal doesn’t save these edited files in your local gallery by default for privacy reasons. But if you want to share the blurred photo on other platforms, you can long-press sent media in the chat and tap the download button present on the row of options at the top.

Signal says the new blur tool relies on your phone’s existing system libraries, which means it doesn’t upload them to a server and all of the processing happens locally on your own device.

Wondering if Signal is better than other encrypted chat apps? Check out our Signal starter guide.

Editors' Recommendations

Shubham Agarwal
Shubham Agarwal is a freelance technology journalist from Ahmedabad, India. His work has previously appeared in Firstpost…
Annoying Google Pixel 4 problems and how to fix them
pixel 4 camera stacks

Google's flagship line of smartphones always shines from a technical and critical perspective, and while it only holds a small market share in the smartphone space, Google still takes a lot of pride in its ever-improving line of Pixel devices.

The Google Pixel 4 was an impressive phone with some cutting-edge software features, but it was badly let down by limited battery life. The Google Pixel 4 XL offers a bit more stamina, but it doesn't last as long as we'd like, either. But battery life isn't the only issue that owners of both of these phones have encountered. We've bumped up against a few other Pixel 4 problems and uncovered some of the most commonly-reported issues from help forums. We're not just here to complain, though -- we're also going to explain how to work around these issues or fix them when possible.

Read more
Common iOS 15 problems and how to fix them
Apple's Craig Federighi standing in front of the iOS 15 logo.

iOS 15 has arrived and has brought new features to Apple's mobile devices, including SharePlay over FaceTime, more Messages customization, a useful Focus Mode, and a lot more. However, along with all these new tricks, iOS 15 has also introduced some new problems. If you've found that iOS 15 isn't working as expected, we've got the solutions you should try. Here's what you should know!

Problem: Getting an iPhone Storage Full error
Normally, when iPhone storage is nearly full, an alert message will pop up saying, well, that your storage is almost full, and downloading something new may be a bad idea until you've cleared out some space. However, after downloading iOS 15, some users are finding that they keep getting this alert even if they have plenty of room on their local iPhone drive, and it happens over and over again even if they do clear their storage. This is also happening on the iPad.
Possible solutions

Read more
Common Samsung Galaxy S20 problems and how to fix them
galaxy s20 ultra tips tricks settings 108mp

Even with the release of the Galaxy S21 range, the Samsung Galaxy S20, S20+, and S20 Ultra are three very powerful smartphones. They boast muscular processors, highly versatile cameras, and delicious screens. That said, even the most exceptional new releases come with a collection of bugs, issues, and problems. If you’re staring at your Galaxy S20, wishing it would function as it should, then continue reading as we explain simple fixes to some of the most common Galaxy S20 problems that you might experience with the lineup.
Issue: Galaxy S20 Plus is stuck in a random reboot loop
Some users on the Samsung Forums have reported their S20 Plus reboots randomly and seems to be stuck in some kind of loop. There have been reports of this happening for some users when they unplug wired headphones, while for others it seems to happen on a regular cycle every few minutes.
Solution
There are a few things to try if this is happening to your phone.

The first thing to do is check to ensure there are no new software updates to install. If you're all up to date, you could check to see if an app is causing the issue, by booting your phone in safe mode. Here's how to do that:

Read more