Scan a QR code
Read a QR code from a screenshot, a photo or your camera and see where it leads before anything opens. Nothing is uploaded.
Drop a photo or screenshot of a QR code or paste one from the clipboard.
The image and the camera feed are read on this device. Nothing is uploaded.
Check a link before you open it
A phone camera shows a small preview of a QR link and opens it with one tap, which is exactly what scammers rely on. Fake parking payment stickers placed over the real code, parcel notices and "verify your account" letters all use QR codes because the destination is hidden until it is too late to reconsider.
This scanner shows the full address and names the website it actually leads to before anything opens. It also flags the tricks that make a link look like somewhere else: text before an @ sign, which browsers ignore; bare IP addresses; lookalike international characters; unencrypted http; and link shorteners that hide the final destination.
What each kind of code does
QR codes aren’t only links. A WiFi code shows the network name and password, which is the easiest way to recover a password printed on a router card or shown on a friend’s phone. A contact card shows each field and can be saved as a .vcf file for any contacts app. Email, SMS and phone codes show who they contact and what they would send, so you can decide before your phone does anything.
Photos that don’t scan
The scanner tries each image at several sizes, since large photos are noisy at full resolution and small screenshots lose detail when shrunk. If it still finds nothing, crop to the code with the image cropper and try again. Glare across the code is the other common culprit: tilt the page slightly and take the photo again.
Common questions
How do I scan a QR code that is on my own screen?
Take a screenshot, then drop it here or paste it with Ctrl+V or Cmd+V. This is the case phone cameras can’t handle: a code in an email, a PDF or a web page on the same device you’re holding.
Does it work with the camera on a laptop?
Yes. Choose Use camera and allow access when the browser asks. Hold the code steady about 20 centimetres from the camera. Webcams are usually fixed focus, so a code held too close will blur; move it back until it is sharp.
Is the image or camera feed uploaded?
No. Frames are read in this browser tab and discarded. The camera stops as soon as a code is found or you press Stop camera and the browser’s camera indicator goes off at the same moment.
Why was no code found?
Usually because the code is too small in the frame, blurred or cut off at an edge. Crop closer, make sure all three corner squares are visible and try a sharper photo. Very damaged codes may be beyond what their error correction can recover.
Can it read barcodes too?
Not the one-dimensional barcodes on groceries. It reads QR codes, including reversed light-on-dark codes and codes containing any language.
Guides
The other tools
All of them work the same way: the file is read in your browser and never uploaded.