QR code scanner from an image
Paste a screenshot or upload a photo, and see what’s inside before you open it. Free, no account.
Drop an image here, paste a screenshot, or choose a file.
PNG, JPEG or WebP, up to 12 MB. It’s sent to our server, read and discarded: nothing is kept.
The text inside the code appears here, along with what kind of code it turned out to be.
On this page
It reads QR codes, Data Matrix and barcodes
One upload is searched for all eight, so you don’t need to know which you have.
- QR code
- Posters, packs, menus, tickets, screens.
- Data Matrix
- Electronics, medicines, small labels.
- Aztec
- Rail and airline tickets.
- PDF417
- Driving licences and boarding passes.
- EAN-13, EAN-8, UPC-A
- Retail packs. UPC-A comes back as a 13-digit EAN.
- Code 128
- Shipping labels and part numbers.
- Code 39
- Some postal services. Capitals, digits and a few symbols.
- ITF and ITF-14
- Outer cases and cartons.
Making one? Use the barcode generator.
How to scan a QR code from a screenshot
Screenshot it, or save the picture
iPhone: side button and volume up (or side and Home). Most Android phones: power and volume down. A picture saved from an email is already a file.
iPhone: open it in Photos
Press the Live Text button in the corner of the picture, or hold your finger on the code.
Android: open it in Google Photos
Tap More, then Google Lens.
Anything else: give it to this page
Paste it with Ctrl+V or ⌘+V, drop the file, or press Choose an image. You see the text and the host, and nothing opens.
Why a picture won’t read
“No code was found” nearly always means the picture, not the code.
- Cropped. A QR code needs its three corner squares, and a barcode the blank space at both ends.
- At an angle. Stand square to the poster, not beside it.
- Glare, or a photo of a screen. Take a screenshot instead of photographing the screen.
- Too small in the frame. Crop in so the code fills most of the picture.
- Low contrast. A pale grey code on white is hard to tell from the paper.
- Torn bars. Type the number printed under them instead.
Pictures are shrunk to 2,048 px on the longest side, twice the width of our 1,024 px PNG. A code that’s a speck in a wide shelf photo gets lost, so crop first.
An address came out. Now what?
The address shows as plain text, with its host on its own line, and never opens from here. Check the host is the company you expected: a brand name inside a longer address isn’t the brand’s domain.
Not sure? Don’t type it in. Find the same page from the company’s own site.
Auditing old print? Scan each code and note its host. The host tells you who runs the link, and so what moves if you change supplier.
What it tells you about the code itself
- Version, 1 to 40: the grid size. Version 1 is 21 squares, and each step adds 4. A high version printed small is fragile.
- Error correction, L, M, Q or H: about 7, 15, 25 or 30% can be lost and still read.
- Mask, 0 to 7: the pattern laid over the data. Useful when two codes should match and don’t.
- GS1 Digital Link: the GTIN, batch, serial and dates are named.
What happens to your picture
The picture goes to our server, because the decoder is about a megabyte of code. It’s read in memory and dropped: no database row, no file, no log, and the answer isn’t cached.
The preview beside the result is drawn from the file on your device.
Last reviewed , against the product as it works today.
Reading codes from images, answered
Can I scan a QR code that’s on my own phone’s screen?
Yes. Take a screenshot, open this page on the same phone and choose that screenshot. The camera can’t see the screen it’s part of.
Someone sent me a picture of a code. How do I read it?
Save the picture first, then open it here or in your gallery. A code inside a chat window is often too small or cropped.
Does it use my camera?
Only if you ask. On a phone, Take a photo opens the camera once and reads that one picture. There’s no live viewfinder.
Can it read a code inside a PDF?
Not the PDF itself. Open it, take a screenshot of the code and upload that.
Is the link opened for me?
No. A code on a sticker is an unknown address, so opening it is your call, made after reading its host.
Is there a limit?
Yes, an hourly one on keyless reads. If you reach it, the page says so and points you to a free API key.
Can I read a batch of images at once?
Not on this page. The same reader is an API endpoint with no key needed, so a folder of labels is a short script.
The rest of the toolbox
Open a row to see the screen and which plan has it.
Wi-Fi, contact cards, email, phone and SMS
Networks, contacts, calendar dates and places, not only links.Every plan, Free included
Website, text, Wi-Fi, email, phone, SMS, contact card, GS1 Digital Link, PDF, location, calendar event and more. Most download free with no account; the ones marked “Editable only” need one.
Every plan, Free included
Contact card codes
Print-ready downloads
Files for the screen, and one for the printer.PNG and SVG on every plan · PDF on Starter and up
PNG and SVG on every plan, and a print-ready PDF on Starter and up.
PNG and SVG on every plan · PDF on Starter and up
City-level scan locations
Which towns the scans came from, not only which countries.Pro and Business
Scans by city and region for each code, and towns on the Live Map. It’s the place the phone’s network reports, never a street.
Pro and Business
