Blur Faces for Privacy with Apple Intelligence Cleanup Tool
About this QuickTip
In this video, I demonstrate the hidden superpower of Apple Intelligence’s Photos Cleanup tool: face pixelation. This feature lets you blur out people’s faces in your photos for privacy, which is especially helpful if you want to share images but need to keep certain individuals unrecognisable. With a quick draw over any face, Apple Intelligence recognises and pixelates it automatically. Plus, once you save the edited photo, the pixelation can’t be undone by others.
Transcript
The Photos Cleanup tool is a highly useful feature in Apple Intelligence, allowing you to remove distractions or unwanted objects from the background of your pictures. However, there’s a hidden superpower within this tool—it can pixelate people’s faces, which is ideal for preserving anonymity. If you’ve captured someone in your photo whose face you don’t have permission to share online, you can easily blur it out to make the person unrecognisable.
To blur someone’s face, simply open Cleanup Mode on your photo, then draw a circle over the person’s face. Apple Intelligence recognises there’s a face in the image and applies a special Safety Filter. This filter pixelates the face rather than attempting to blend it into the background, as it would with other objects. You can undo and redo this action to get the desired level of pixelation, ensuring the person is safely anonymised.
Once you save the image, the pixelation is permanent, so when you share it, no one can reverse the blur. This is a secure and effective way to maintain privacy in your photos.
Technical details: This QuickTip was recorded on an iPhone 16 Pro Max running iOS 18.1 in October 2024.
The content used in this video is intended for educational and informational purposes only. All rights to the images, music, clips, and other media used belong to their respective owners. I do not claim ownership over any third-party content used. This video has not been authorised, sponsored, or otherwise approved by Apple Inc. Apple Intelligence and iPhone are trademarks of Apple Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries and regions. iOS is a registered trademark of Cisco Systems Inc. Whilst I have done my best to list all applicable trademarks for this video, in the (hopefully unlikely) event that I have missed any you can find a full list of trademarks registered to Apple Inc. on their website. Finally, please note that whilst every effort has been made to ensure the information contained within this video was correct at time of publication, please be aware that as future updates and software changes occur some or all elements of this video may become outdated. I will endeavour to remove videos which are completely obsolete so as not to cause confusion!