Do Online Image Tools Upload Your Photos?
Do online image tools upload your photos? Four of the six I checked do, and one keeps them for thirty days. Everything here runs in your browser.
Do online image tools upload your photos? Mostly, yes. I checked six online image editors while building the text editor here, and four of them upload your picture to a server in order to process it. Two state their own retention in their terms, one naming a window of three to thirty days depending on account status. None of them mention any of it on the page where you drop the file in.
That matters most for exactly the files people reach for these tools with: a receipt, a form, a bank statement, a screenshot of a private conversation. The way to tell is not to read the marketing, which says the same thing everywhere. Open your browser's network tab and watch whether a request carries the file. On this site nothing does, because the picture is decoded by your own browser, changed in memory, and re-encoded before it downloads. There is no upload step, so there is nothing to retain.
The Image Text Editor is live and can replace text already baked into a picture, matching the original colour, size and weight closely enough that the change does not read as an edit. A compressor, resizer, cropper and JPG to PNG converter are next, and all four will work the same way: in the tab, on your device, with nothing sent anywhere.
Image Tools
- Image Text EditorReplace the text already in a picture, matched to its colour, size and weight, or add text of your own. Runs in your browser, so nothing is uploaded.
- Image CompressorCompress an image to a target size in KB, and see the quality it cost. Runs in your browser, so nothing is uploaded.
Image Resizer, Image Cropper and JPG to PNG Converter are in development.
Guides and explanations
Longer pieces that go past what a tool page can show you.
- How to Edit Text in an ImageWhy editing text baked into a photo needs OCR and inpainting, what that costs in megabytes, and the four approaches that actually work.
- What JPEG Quality Should I Use?I measured the whole curve on three kinds of image. Quality 80 is the elbow for photographs and the wrong answer for screenshots.
Frequently asked questions
Are these image tools free?
Yes, with no account, no credits and no watermark on anything you export. That is worth stating because it is not the norm: of the six competing editors I checked while building this site, one charges from $1.99 in credits and two require an account before you can save your work.
Do you upload or store my images?
No, and not as a policy promise but as a technical fact. The image is read by your browser using the standard file API, drawn to a canvas element, and exported by the browser's own encoder. No network request carries the file, so there is no copy on any server to store, log or retain. You can verify it by watching your browser's network tab while you work.
What image formats can I use?
Anything your browser can decode, which in practice means JPEG, PNG, WebP, GIF and usually AVIF. Exports are PNG or JPEG. PNG keeps transparency, which is what you want if you are placing text on a clear background; JPEG does not have an alpha channel, so transparent areas get filled in.
Is there a size limit?
Images larger than 4096 pixels on the longest side are scaled down to that, and the tool tells you when it happens. This is a memory limit rather than a policy: a 50-megapixel camera file would otherwise allocate hundreds of megabytes of canvas and stall a phone browser. The result is still far larger than any screen use requires.
Do these image tools work on mobile?
Yes. I build everything for a narrow screen first, use pointer events so that touch and mouse follow one code path, and test at 375 pixels wide. The image text editor lets you edit text directly on the picture, with the controls pinned to whichever edge is furthest from the line you are working on.