Pixelate faces in a video with a mosaic that follows them

Turn every face in a video into a block mosaic, the look you know from the news. Faces are found and tracked on your own device, and one slider sets how coarse the blocks are.

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Three friends walking beside railway tracks, their faces pixelated by Shycut

How it works

Drop your video
MP4, MOV, WebM or MKV from a phone, a camera or a screen recording. It opens in your browser and is never uploaded.
Choose “Pixelate”
Faces are found and followed as soon as the video opens. Set the style to “Pixelate” and move “Strength” to pick the size of the blocks.
Check and export
Every face starts hidden. Tap anyone who may be seen, watch the preview through and save a new MP4.

What you get

Block size you control: “Strength” sets how big the blocks are. Bigger blocks leave less of a face to recognise.
Detail removed, not smudged: The face is shrunk to a few blocks and scaled back up, so the original detail is gone from the export.
A mosaic that moves with people: Each face is tracked from frame to frame, so the pixels stay on it as people walk, turn and cross the frame.
A shape that fits: Faces get an ellipse, plates and drawn areas a rounded rectangle, so the mosaic covers the face and not half the picture.
Four styles, one tap apart: Switch between “Blur”, “Pixelate”, “Emoji” and “Box” and the preview updates at once, without scanning again.
Plates and anything else: Search for license plates, or draw around a logo or a screen with “Add area”: it gets the same pixelation.

When pixelation is the right look

News-style reports

A mosaic tells viewers right away that someone was hidden on purpose. It suits reports, short documentaries and incident clips.

Anonymous interviews

Someone agreed to talk but not to be recognised. Use big blocks or the box, and remember that their voice is not changed.

Friends and group videos

Everyone is pixelated first. Reveal the friends who are happy to be seen and keep the rest a mosaic.

Lighter, playful clips

When a mosaic feels too serious, the emoji style covers each face with a symbol instead. Same tracking, friendlier tone.

Pixelate, blur or box: which way to hide a face

Pixelation cuts a face into a grid of square blocks, each one a single colour. Shycut does it by shrinking the face area to a handful of pixels and stretching it back to full size without smoothing. Whatever detail was there is thrown away; the export holds only the blocks. That is different from a light soft-focus filter, which can sometimes be partly undone. The mosaic is drawn into the pixels of a new MP4, so there is no layer for anyone to switch off.

“Strength” sets the size of the blocks, measured in pixels of the video. That has a consequence worth knowing: a face that fills the frame is cut into many more blocks than a small face in the background, so a close-up keeps more of its shape at the same setting. For close-ups, push the strength up. If you can still make out the eyes, the nose or the hairline when you look at the preview, the blocks are too small.

Blur, pixelate, emoji and box all hide a face; the difference is in what viewers read from it. A blur is soft and quiet, good when the people in the background are simply not the point. Pixelation is unmistakable and looks like deliberate censorship, which is why news and documentaries use it. The emoji covers a face with a symbol over a blur, for a lighter mood. The box is a solid dark fill that leaves nothing at all, the strongest choice.

Many online tools that pixelate video ask for an upload first, which hands the unedited faces to a server. In Shycut, the face detector runs in your browser and every face it finds starts hidden. The style applies to everything hidden in that video, faces, plates and any area you draw, and you can switch styles at any time without scanning again. Tap a face to reveal it, watch the preview from start to end, then export. Faces that move fast? Blurring a moving face explains how the tracking keeps up; for a softer look, blur the faces instead.

Tips for a mosaic that really hides

For close-ups, raise “Strength”: big faces need bigger blocks to stay unrecognisable.
Raise “Margin” so hair and ears are pixelated too; they can be as telling as the face itself.
Pixelation hides a face, not a voice, a name badge or a tattoo. Use “Add area” for anything else in the picture.
When someone must not be identified under any circumstances, choose “Box” instead of a mosaic.
Watch the preview once through: faces in profile and quick turns are where a detector is most likely to slip.

Private by construction

Runs on your device: Your browser decodes, analyses and encodes the video. There is no server to send it to.
Nothing is uploaded: The counter in the header measures every byte this page sends. It stays at zero.
Location data wiped: Phones hide GPS positions inside videos. The exported file never carries them.

Questions

Is pixelating better than blurring?

Neither is stronger by default: in Shycut both throw the detail away. Pixelation with large blocks reads as deliberate censorship; a blur looks calmer. For the strongest protection, use the solid “Box”.

Can pixelation be reversed?

The face is shrunk to a few blocks and stretched back, so the original detail is not in the exported file. With small blocks the rough shape can still hint at who someone is, so use a higher strength for faces that matter.

How do I make the pixels bigger?

Move the “Strength” slider up. Block size is measured in video pixels, so a large face close to the camera needs a higher setting than a small one in the distance.

Can I pixelate only one person?

Yes. Everyone starts hidden, so tap “Show all” and then tap the one face that should stay pixelated. The found list shows when each face appears, so you can pick the right one.

Is my video uploaded to pixelate it?

No. Detection, tracking and pixelation all run in your browser on your own device. The face model is downloaded once (about 4 MB, with its engine); your video never leaves your device.

Can I pixelate license plates and other things too?

Yes. Tap “Search” next to “Licence plates”, or draw around anything with “Add area”. Everything hidden in a video uses the same style, so it all comes out as a mosaic.

Your video stays with you.

Open Shycut, drop the video in and export. Free, with no account, and your video never leaves your device.