Crop a photo to any box or a set shape

Crop a photo

Your photo never leaves this page. Nothing is uploaded: it is opened and rewritten in your browser, and the page keeps working with the connection off.

Choose a photo

Or drop one on this box. Any photo your browser can show works. A HEIC photo from an iPhone opens in Safari; in other browsers, save it as a JPEG first.

How to crop

1. Choose a photo. Pick one, or drop one on the box. Each photo tool keeps working with the connection switched off once its page has loaded, and the browser test runs every tool that way. The box starts a little inside the photo’s edges so its corners are easy to find.
2. Pick a shape, or keep it free. Free lets the box take any size. Original keeps the photo’s own proportions. The set shapes hold the box to that ratio however you drag it.
3. Place the box. Drag the middle to move it, and drag a corner to size it; the opposite corner stays still. The grid of thirds helps line up a horizon or a face.
4. Fine-tune with the keyboard. Tab to the box or a corner and use the arrow keys. Each press moves about a hundredth of the photo’s shorter side, and Shift moves ten times as far.
5. Crop and save. The line under the photo gives the exact size in pixels and its ratio. Choose Crop, then save the file.

Which shape for what

The image cropper offers a free box, the photo’s own shape, 1:1, 4:5, 16:9 and 3:2, and can turn a shape from wide to tall. On the page each shape carries a short name, used below.

Each site sets its own sizes and changes them now and then, so check what it asks for when it matters. A crop to the right shape can still be too big or too small in pixels; the image resizer sets an exact width afterwards.

What the saved file contains

• The crop, at full resolution. The page copies that rectangle of the full-size photo onto a new canvas, so no detail is lost and nothing is enlarged. The preview on screen is only a smaller copy for working on.
• JPEG or PNG. JPEG suits photos and opens everywhere; PNG keeps every pixel and any transparency, in a bigger file. A clear area turns white in a JPEG.
• No camera, date or location data. A canvas holds only pixels, and the page checks the file once more before offering it.

Cropping cuts away what is outside the box, and that part is gone from the new file. It does nothing to what is inside. A face, a number plate or an address in the middle of the shot needs covering, which the blur and cover tool does. For an official photo with set head sizes, the passport photo cropper has its own guide.

Where Sealed helps, and where it doesn’t

It helps when the photo you are cropping is one you would rather keep private afterwards. The photo editor rotates and flips a photo and crops it to its original shape, a square, 4:3, 3:4, 16:9 or 9:16. Saving an edit in the photo editor seals the result as a new item, so the original photo stays as it was. The photo editor works inside the vault, so the photo is never put back in your library to be edited.

It doesn’t have a free crop box like this page: the editor’s crop is held to one of its shapes. Nothing on this page reaches your vault. Until you delete them, the originals stay in Photos, outside the vault.