SnapHide is a desktop application for privacy protection and image editing. It lets you redact (blur, pixelate, or solid-fill) sensitive areas in photos, automatically detect faces, ID numbers, vehicle plates, and other private information using local AI. It also includes a full suite of image tools: resize, compress, convert, adjust, watermark, crop, and more. All processing stays on your machine – nothing is uploaded.
How does the licensing work?
SnapHide offers a 30‑day full‑featured trial (no credit card required). After the trial, you need a license key to continue. You can purchase a subscription or lifetime license from the website. Pricing (India): ₹499/year | ₹4,999/lifetime Pricing (International): $19/year | $189/lifetime
License keys are signed and cannot be forged. You can activate your key via Tools → License / Activate.
Is my data safe? Do you store my images?
Absolutely not. All processing – including AI models – runs locally on your computer. We never upload or store any image, metadata, or personal information. The application works entirely offline (except for opening web links). Your privacy is our core promise.
Basic Usage
How do I open an image?
Click 📂 Open on the toolbar, or go to File → Open Image (shortcut Ctrl+O).
Drag & drop an image file onto the window.
Press Ctrl+V to paste an image from the clipboard (e.g., a screenshot).
Use the global hotkey Ctrl+Shift+S to capture the full screen and load it instantly.
How do I redact part of an image?
Select a tool on the left dock: Rect, Circle, or Brush.
Choose an effect: Blur, Pixel (pixelate), or Redact (solid black or custom colour).
Drag on the image to apply the effect. For brush, paint freehand.
You can undo the last action with ↩ Undo (Ctrl+Z).
Pro tip: Use the Brush tool with a large size for quick covering of sensitive text.
How do I save my redacted image?
Click 💾 Save (Ctrl+S). Choose a format (PNG, JPEG, WebP, BMP). You can set output size/quality in the dialog – from Small/Medium/High presets or original size. The tool will also warn you if you used a reversible effect (Blur or Pixelate) and recommend using solid Redact for maximum privacy. By default, EXIF and embedded thumbnails are stripped automatically.
Redaction Tools
What’s the difference between Blur, Pixelate, and Redact?
Blur – Gaussian blur; softens details, but some information might still be recoverable with advanced deblurring.
Pixelate – blocks the image into large squares; visually destroys details, but also reversible in theory.
Redact – covers the area with a solid colour (default black). This is permanent and offers the highest privacy.
SnapHide will warn you when saving if you used only Blur or Pixelate, reminding you to consider using Redact for truly sensitive content.
Can I customise the redaction colour?
Yes. Click the 🎨 Redact Color button in the dock. You can choose from preset colours or pick a custom colour via the colour dialog.
How do I adjust blur radius or pixel block size?
Use the ⚙ Radius and ⚙ Block Size buttons in the tools dock. These settings are saved and applied to future redactions.
AI & Auto-Redaction
What does the AI auto-redact do?
The Auto-Redact feature (Ctrl+Shift+A) finds and removes everything private in your image with one click:
Faces – even in profile, tilted, masked, or poor lighting.
Indian ID documents – Aadhaar (validated against Verhoeff checksum), PAN, GSTIN, IFSC, passport numbers, bank accounts, UPI IDs.
It uses a local OCR engine (rapidocr-onnxruntime) and custom regex/validation, so it works offline and costs nothing.
What is the Privacy Scan?
Privacy Scan (Ctrl+Shift+P) analyses the metadata of an image file (requires the image to be opened from disk). It shows:
GPS coordinates (with a clickable map link)
Device make/model, software used
Date and time taken
Any other EXIF tags
This helps you understand what information is embedded in your photos before sharing them.
Do I need an internet connection for AI features?
No. All AI models are bundled and run locally. You can unplug your network and SnapHide will work perfectly.
Can I manually detect faces and choose which to redact?
Yes. Use Tools → Auto-Detect Faces. You’ll see a preview with detected face boxes. You can select which ones to redact and choose the effect (Pixelate/Blur/Redact). There are three sensitivity levels to catch even difficult faces.
Image Tools
What can I do with the Image Tools dialog?
Access it via 🛠 Image Tools or Tools → Image Tools. It offers:
Resize – set exact dimensions or use presets (WhatsApp, HD, 4K, etc.) with aspect‑ratio lock.
Compress – choose a target file size (KB) and the tool will automatically find the best JPEG quality using binary search.
Watermark – add text overlay with opacity and 7 position options.
Crop – enter pixel coordinates to crop any rectangle.
Does Image Tools preserve my redactions?
Yes. The tools work on the current image (including any redactions). You can, for example, redact a face, then resize the whole image, and the redaction stays.
PDF & Templates
Can I redact PDF documents?
Yes. Use File → Open PDF. Each page is converted to an image (requires pdf2image and reportlab). You can redact pages, then save the entire document back as a PDF via File → Save as PDF. The redactions are applied to each page individually.
What are redaction templates?
Templates let you save a set of redacted regions (e.g., for a specific document like a passport). After redacting an image, choose Tools → Templates → Save Current Regions as Template. Later, load the same template on a similar image (even with a different size) – the regions are automatically scaled to fit. This saves you from re‑drawing the same boxes every time.
Batch Processing
How do I process multiple images at once?
Choose Tools → Batch Process. Select an input folder, an output folder (or use the same), pick an effect (Blur, Pixelate, or Redact), and optionally strip metadata and create a backup of originals. The tool will apply the chosen effect to every image in the folder. Progress is shown, and you can cancel at any time.
Global Hotkey & System Tray
What is the global screenshot hotkey?
By default, Ctrl+Shift+S captures the entire screen (all monitors) and loads it directly into SnapHide. This works even when the window is hidden or minimised – perfect for quick redaction of something on your screen. You can change the hotkey in Settings (requires pynput installed).
Why does SnapHide stay in the system tray when I close the window?
This keeps the global hotkey active in the background. You can quit completely from the tray icon menu. The first time you close the window, you’ll be asked whether to keep it running or quit; you can also set a default preference.
Troubleshooting
Auto-Redact or Face Detection doesn’t work – what’s wrong?
These features require additional Python packages:
rapidocr-onnxruntime (for OCR)
opencv-python (for image processing)
numpy, Pillow
You also need the snaphide_core folder (bundled with the app) containing the ML models and helper scripts. If you see an error message, follow the instructions to install the missing dependencies.
I get an error when opening PDFs.
PDF support requires pdf2image and reportlab. Install them with:
pip install pdf2image reportlab
On Linux, you may also need poppler-utils (e.g., sudo apt install poppler-utils).
My license key isn’t accepted.
Make sure you copy the key exactly as provided (including the SNAP- prefix). Paste it without extra spaces or line breaks. If problems persist, contact vsnsoft@yahoo.com.