How to blur a video on Mac

Blur or pixelate a face, a plate or a screen in Safari or Chrome on your Mac. The edit runs on your computer and the finished video lands in Downloads.

Choose a video to pixelate or blur

Drop one here or choose one from your device.

Works withMP4MOVWebMMKVand more

Private: your video never leaves your device.

1Choose video
2Pixelate
3Download

Macs come with Photos, QuickTime Player and iMovie, which handle trimming, cropping, filters and titles well. Blurring one chosen area of the frame, and keeping that blur on a subject as it moves, is not what they are built for. For that job, the browser method on this page is the dependable free option.

It works in an up-to-date Safari or Chrome. The video is processed on the Mac itself, nothing is uploaded, and there is no program to install or account to make.

How to blur part of a video on a Mac

Get the clip into Finder

If the video lives in Photos, drag it from the Photos window to your desktop, or select it and choose File > Export > Export Unmodified Original. A file already in Finder is ready as it is.
Open it on this page

In Safari or Chrome, drag the file onto the box above that says Choose a video to pixelate or blur, or click that box and pick the file.
Mark what to hide

Click Blur, then Chosen areas. Click Find faces automatically for people, or drag across the video to draw a box over a plate, a screen or a sign.
Export and find the file

Click Export video, then Download video when it is ready. Unless you have changed the setting, both browsers put it in the Downloads folder, named after the original with -pixelated added.

What the built-in Mac apps can and cannot do

Before hunting for a blur button, it helps to know what is already on the Mac.

Photos is made for trimming clips and adjusting their color and light. It has no tool for blurring or pixelating one area of a video.
QuickTime Player can trim, split and rotate a video, but it offers no effects for hiding part of the picture.
iMovie's filters change the look of a whole clip. People do build blurred patches in it with overlay tricks, but that takes careful work, and the patch will not follow a moving subject by itself.

The tool on this page needs nothing beyond the browser you already use, and it finds faces and tracks objects for you.

Safari or Chrome: what differs

Either browser can open, blur and export a video here, and the editing controls are identical in both.

The one difference is with very large results. When a finished file is over about 512 MB, Chrome opens a save window so you can pick a folder, which saves the browser holding an extra copy in memory. Safari uses its normal download at every size.

If you would rather choose a folder each time, both browsers can ask. In Safari, open Settings, then General, and change File download location. In Chrome, open Settings, then Downloads, and turn on Ask where to save each file before downloading.

Safari may also show a Share button once the export is done, which opens the macOS share menu for AirDrop, Messages or Mail.

Working with iPhone and Mac footage

Clips recorded on an iPhone usually arrive on the Mac as MOV files, often encoded in HEVC. They open here like any other video, and the export comes out as MP4.

Leave the format under Export settings on MP4 if you want the result to play in QuickTime Player and Photos. WebM is an option in some browsers, but QuickTime Player does not open WebM files.

To put the blurred clip into your library, drag it from Downloads into the Photos window, or choose File > Import in Photos.

Keyboard shortcuts worth knowing on a Mac

Space plays and pauses the preview, and the comma and period keys step one frame back or forward.
The [ and ] keys set when the selected area starts and ends.
A adds a new area, and M switches between Whole video and Chosen areas.
The minus key weakens the effect, and Shift with the equals key strengthens it.
I and O trim the clip at the playhead, setting where it starts and where it ends.
Command and Return starts the export, and the ? key lists every shortcut.

Questions about this kind of blur

Is there a built-in way to blur a video on a Mac?

Not a simple one. Photos and QuickTime Player have no tool for blurring an area, and iMovie's filters apply to the whole clip. A browser tool like this one is the easiest free route.

Which browser should I use on a Mac?

Safari and Chrome both work, so use whichever you already have open. The steps are the same and so is the finished video.

Where is the blurred video saved on a Mac?

In your Downloads folder, unless you have told the browser to save somewhere else. Look for the original file name with -pixelated on the end. The downloads list in the browser's toolbar opens it too.

Can I blur a video from my Photos library?

Yes, once it is a file. Drag the clip from Photos to the desktop or export it with the File menu, then open that file here.

Can I blur faces automatically on a Mac?

Click Chosen areas and then Find faces automatically. A face model of about 3 MB loads once, and every face it spots gets an oval that moves with the person. Look over the result, since small or turned-away faces can slip through.

Is the video uploaded from my Mac?

It is read, blurred and encoded inside the browser on your Mac. The page does not send the footage to a server at any point.