How to Hide Sensitive Info Before Sharing a Photo on Android

It’s easy to share images on Android, but you don’t want to accidentally share your address or credit card details too! Here’s how to hide them.

Your phone comes with the convenience of being able to share images with friends and family on a whim. However, you might accidentally expose some sensitive or private information that may compromise your privacy and security, especially on social media.

Some information you should be wary of leaving on images you share on your phone include credit card numbers, personal contacts, passwords, addresses, passport details, and social security numbers. Here are several ways you can ensure the information on photos you share from your phone doesn’t land in the wrong hands.

1. Overlay Elements Using Your Default Photo Editor

The easiest way of covering info on a photo is using your phone’s native editor to overlay elements on it. You can overlay emojis, stickers, icons, or other images depending on what your photo editing app offers.

Here’s an example of how to go about it on a Samsung phone, but the procedure should be similar on other Android devices. We’ll be hiding a personal physical address that accidentally shows up on a photo using stickers.

1. Open your phone’s photo gallery and select the photo you want to edit.
2. Tap the Edit icon at the bottom of the screen.
3. Navigate to and tap the Stickers icon.
4. Choose the sticker you want to use.
5. Resize it, move it around until it covers the sensitive info you want to hide, then tap Save.
6. You can now access the censored photo from your gallery and share it without compromising your privacy.

2. Hide Personal Info in Photos With Canva and ScreenMaster

There are many free photo editing apps available on Android that you can use to modify and edit your photos. You can use these to edit or cover private information before sharing a picture. Canva and ScreenMaster are two of the available free editors we recommend if you need to quickly edit out the information you want to hide when sharing your photos.

To block out any details on a photo on the Canva Android app, follow these steps:

1. Launch Canva and tap the + button.
2. Tap the image you want to edit from the More ways to create section. Scroll horizontally to the right to locate older photos in your gallery.
3. Choose the desired image dimensions and tap Create.
4. Once the editing project is ready, tap the + button and go to Elements.
5. Choose the element of your liking. You can pick from shapes, graphics, stickers, or photos. The selected element will appear as an overlay on your photo.
6. Adjust the element accordingly using the Canva toolbar and the surrounding guides.
7. Once you get the desired design of your overlay, tap the Download button to save the edited image in your gallery.

ScreenMaster is primarily built to censor images’ details, especially in screenshots. Here’s how to go about it:

1. Launch ScreenMaster and tap Edit.
2. Tap Markup Photo and locate the photo you want to edit in your phone’s gallery.
3. Pinch to zoom in on the details you want to hide in your photo.
4. From the toolbar on the bottom, tap Mosaic.
5. Tap the image and use the available resize tool to highlight the exact area you want to be covered.
6. Tap the tick icon on the bottom right and then Save the edited image to your gallery.

3. Crop Out Parts of an Image

If the information you want to hide is along the edges of your image, cropping it out is the best way of censoring it. The best thing about this approach is that you can use your phone’s native photo editor.

Here’s an example of how to do it. The procedure may vary slightly from device to device, but the idea is the same.

1. Open your phone’s photo gallery and select the photo you want to edit.
2. Tap the Edit icon.
3. From the available editing tools, select the cropping options which will most likely be the first or among the first.
4. Adjust the cropping frame and make sure the area you want to retain is within this field.
5. Save and share the picture once you’re sure you’ve cropped out the parts you want to hide.

Image cropping comes as a primary functionality on all third-party photo editing apps. Also, you can use one of the many available online image-cropping tools if you want to do it on a PC.

4. Cover the Details You Want to Protect

If you’re wary of leaking any information before even taking a particular photo, you can easily fix it by covering it with another object. For instance, you can place a book or a piece of paper over your address when scanning a document using your phone.

Secure Your Private Information

Sharing files over the internet is convenient, but this level of convenience comes with the possibility of your information landing in the wrong hands. To be safe, always check all your photos and screenshots for anything private or sensitive before sharing them with friends, family, or workmates.