QR Code Reader

You add an image and the tool finds the QR code in it and turns it back into its original text on your device. It works out what the text is from how it starts, so a web address is shown as a link, a WIFI entry as a network, a vCard as a contact, and a mailto or tel as an email or phone number. For a link it shows the host, such as the site name, and never opens it on its own; you tap to open it in a new tab only if you trust it. Read several images in one go.

Reading a QR code usually means pointing a second phone at a screen, which does not work when the code is already a picture on the device you are using. This reader takes that image, a screenshot, a saved poster or a photo, and turns the code back into its text. The pixels are read on your device with a small decoder, so the image is never uploaded and whatever the code holds stays private.

Codes carry more than links. A Wi-Fi code stores a network name and password, a contact code stores a name, phone and email, and others hold an email, a phone number, an SMS or a map point. The reader recognises each from how the text begins and labels it, so you are not left guessing what a bare string of characters means. The full text is always shown so you can copy it exactly as stored.

Links deserve care, because a code gives no hint of where it leads until it is read. The reader shows the destination host and waits for you to tap before opening anything, so you can judge a link first. To go the other way and build your own code from a link, Wi-Fi or contact, use the QR Code Generator. For reading printed words rather than codes, Image to Text copies text out of a photo.

If a code will not read, the image is usually too small, blurred or cut off. Crop closer to the code with Crop Image so it fills more of the frame, or enlarge a tiny image with Resize Image, then try again. A clear, square photo of the code with a little white space around it reads best, and a batch of images is handled one after another.