QR Code Scanner & Reader — scan from image online
Read the contents of a QR code from a screenshot, photo or uploaded image. Free online QR scanner — decoding happens in your browser, not on a server.
About the QR code reader tool
Phone cameras read QR codes effortlessly, which leaves a gap nobody thinks about until they hit it: reading one that is already on your screen. A code in a PDF invoice, an email, a webinar slide, a screenshot a colleague sent, or a page you are viewing on the same device the code expects you to scan. You cannot point a phone at its own display, and photographing a monitor rarely produces something a scanner will accept.
Uploading the image solves it directly. The picture is analysed for the finder patterns — the three large squares in the corners that tell a decoder where the code is and how it is oriented — and the data is read out and shown as text. It works on screenshots, on photographs of printed codes, and on codes embedded in documents, at any rotation.
Seeing the destination before visiting it is the other reason to use a reader rather than a camera. QR codes are opaque by design: nothing in the pattern tells a human where it leads. Malicious codes stuck over legitimate ones on parking meters, restaurant tables and delivery lockers have become a routine scam, because the victim has no way to inspect a link before their phone opens it. Reading the code as text first removes that entirely.
When a scan fails it is nearly always the image rather than the code. Resolution is the usual problem — a code cropped tiny from a screenshot lacks the pixels to resolve individual modules. Blur, glare, a steep angle, or a photograph of a screen showing moiré patterns all interfere as well. A flat, sharp, well-lit capture of the whole code, with its surrounding margin intact, works far more reliably than a close crop.
How it works
Upload the image
A screenshot, a photo of a printed code, or an image saved from a document. It stays on your device.
Let it decode
The finder patterns are located and the data read out, at any rotation. Nothing is uploaded to do it.
Read before you act
The contents appear as plain text, so you can see exactly where a link goes before deciding to open it.
Frequently asked questions
- Why can I not just use my phone camera?
- You can, when the code is on something other than the device you are holding. The gap is codes already on your own screen — in a PDF, an email, a slide or a screenshot — since a phone cannot photograph its own display, and photographing a monitor introduces moiré and glare that frequently defeat a scanner. Uploading the image sidesteps all of it.
- Why is my image not being read?
- Usually resolution: a code cropped small from a screenshot may not have enough pixels to resolve its individual squares. Blur, glare on a printed surface, a steep viewing angle, or a heavily compressed image are the other common causes. Try a sharper, larger capture that includes the whole code plus its surrounding white margin.
- Is it safe to scan a QR code I do not recognise?
- Reading it as text here is entirely safe, and that is exactly the right way to handle one you are unsure about. The risk with a camera is that your phone may open the link immediately, before you have seen where it goes. Codes stuck over legitimate ones on parking meters and restaurant tables are a common scam precisely because of that.
- Can it read a damaged or partly obscured code?
- Often yes. QR codes include Reed-Solomon error correction, and depending on the level chosen when the code was made, anywhere from 7 to 30 percent of it can be missing or damaged and still decode — which is how codes with logos placed in the middle continue to work. Damage across a corner finder pattern is much harder to recover from.
- Does it work with barcodes?
- This reads QR codes specifically. Traditional one-dimensional barcodes such as EAN and UPC on retail products use an entirely different encoding and need a different decoder. Other two-dimensional formats like Data Matrix and Aztec, common in logistics and transport tickets, are also outside what this handles.
- Is my image uploaded to be decoded?
- No. Decoding runs in your browser tab using a JavaScript library, so the image is read from your disk and analysed in memory without crossing the network. That matters when the code is on a boarding pass, a ticket, an invoice or a Wi-Fi card, all of which carry data you would not want stored on someone else's server.
- What kinds of content can a QR code hold?
- Most commonly a URL, but also plain text, an email address, a phone number, an SMS, Wi-Fi credentials, a calendar event or a contact card. Whatever is encoded is shown here as raw text, so you can see precisely what a scanner would have received — including the parts a phone would have acted on without showing you.