Circle crop an image
Crop a photo to a circle for a profile picture, with transparent corners or a solid background and an optional ring.
Drop JPG, PNG, WebP, HEIC, AVIF, GIF, BMP files here or paste from the clipboard.
Your files are processed on this device. Nothing is uploaded.
Transparent corners and why the format decides it
A circle crop is really a square image with the corners made invisible. PNG and WebP can store invisible pixels; JPG can’t and a circle saved as JPG always comes out as a circle painted onto a solid square. That is the single most common complaint about circle crops made elsewhere and it is a format problem rather than a cropping one.
So the output here is PNG unless you choose a solid background, in which case JPG is the sensible choice and the corners take the colour you pick.
Where a pre-cropped circle is worth having
Social platforms crop the circle for you, so uploading a circle there gains nothing. The places it matters are the ones that show your image exactly as supplied: an email signature, a slide, a speaker page, a team directory, a printed name badge. In each of those a square photo looks unfinished next to everyone else's round one.
Getting the framing right
The crop takes the largest centred square and the zoom tightens it from there. For a head and shoulders shot, a zoom of around 120 to 140% usually lands the face nicely in the circle. If the subject is well off centre, crop first so they’re in the middle.
Common questions
Why does my circle crop have white or black corners?
Because it was saved as a JPG, which can’t store transparency. The corners of the square have to be some colour, so they get painted. Saving as PNG, which this tool does by default, keeps the corners genuinely transparent so the circle sits cleanly on any background.
Do I even need a circle crop for a profile picture?
Usually not. Most platforms crop your square upload into a circle themselves. A pre-cropped circle is for the places that don’t: email signatures, slide decks, websites, team pages and printed badges, where a square photo would show as a square.
My face isn’t centred. What do I do?
Crop the photo roughly around your face first with the image cropper, then bring it here. This tool takes the largest centred square and zooms from there, which suits most portraits but can’t know where the face is in an off-centre shot.
What size should a profile picture be?
Five hundred pixels or so is plenty for almost every platform and 512 is the default here. Larger does no harm but every platform shrinks it anyway. Go higher only for print, where a badge or a printed card wants more pixels per inch.
What is the ring option for?
A coloured outline around the circle, the look used on team pages and in some apps. It is drawn inside the circle rather than outside, so the image stays exactly the size you asked for.
Guides
The other tools
All of them work the same way: the file is read in your browser and never uploaded.