QR code reader from image
Decode a QR code from a screenshot or photo, without pointing a phone at your own screen.
Or choose them. Files are processed in this tab and never uploaded to any server.
The QR code is already on your computer — in a screenshot, an email attachment, a PDF page you rendered to an image — and you want what is inside it without holding a phone up to the monitor. Drop the images here and each is scanned by jsQR, a JavaScript port of the ZXing detector. It is also the careful way to look at a code before trusting it: you see the full URL or payload as text, before any app opens it.
How it works
- Each image is tried at up to three sizes, and both as it is and with colours inverted, because jsQR is sensitive to module size and some codes are printed light on dark.
- Several images can be scanned in one go; the results are listed under each file name, and files where nothing was found are named in the stats.
- The content type — URL, Wi-Fi network, vCard contact, otpauth two-factor secret, plain text — is identified so you know what you are looking at.
Where your data goes
Nowhere. This tool runs entirely in your browser: the text you paste is processed by the page and is never transmitted to a server or written to a log.
This tool is free and needs no account. Its results exist only in your open page and are not saved anywhere.
What it costs
This tool is free, with no sign-in and no points.
Common questions
- Why was no code found in my photo?
- Crop closer so the code fills more of the image, keep its white border (the quiet zone) in frame, and avoid glare and steep angles. jsQR also finds only one code per image, so an image with several codes returns one of them; crop each out to read them all.
- Is it safe to decode a QR code I do not trust?
- Decoding only reads the pattern; nothing in it is opened or run here. That makes this a good way to check where a code on a parking meter or a flyer really leads before you scan it with a phone, which might open the link straight away.
- Why is the result an otpauth:// link?
- That code sets up two-factor authentication, and its secret parameter is the key that generates your one-time codes. Treat it like a password: anyone with that string can generate your codes. Nothing here uploads it, but do not paste it anywhere else.
The open-source behind it
This tool runs on cozmo/jsQR, released under Apache-2.0. If you need the same behaviour inside your own program, that is the library to reach for.
cozmo/jsQRAlso known as
- qr code reader online
- scan qr code from image
- decode qr code
- read qr from screenshot
- qr code scanner upload
- qr decoder