How to read a QR code from an image
Sometimes the code is in a screenshot, a PDF, or an email — with no way to point a camera at it. And sometimes you want to see where it goes before you go there.
Read it
- Open the tool and stay on the QR code tab.
- Expand Read a QR code from an image at the bottom.
- Choose the image — a screenshot, a photo, or a saved picture.
- The contents appear in a box, with a button to copy the text.
Checking a code before you trust it
This is the use worth highlighting. Scanning a QR code with a phone camera often opens the destination immediately, which means you have visited a link before you had any chance to evaluate it. Quishing — QR phishing — relies on exactly that. Fake codes stuck over legitimate ones on parking meters, restaurant tables and package labels have become common enough that several national fraud agencies have issued warnings about them.
Reading the code as an image instead shows you the raw contents as text. You see the actual address before deciding.
What to look for in a decoded link: a domain that genuinely matches the organisation, no lookalike spelling such as a swapped letter or an added word, and no URL shortener hiding the real destination. If a parking or payment code leads somewhere that is not the operator's own domain, do not continue.
Getting a clean read
- Crop closely around the code. A code occupying a small corner of a large photo is much harder to detect.
- Keep it square-on. Steep angles distort the grid. Mild perspective is handled; a 45-degree photo often is not.
- Focus matters more than resolution. A sharp small image beats a blurry large one.
- Avoid glare. A reflection across the pattern removes the data underneath it.
- Inverted codes work. Light-on-dark designs are attempted automatically.
What you will see
The decoded text depends on what the code holds. A website code shows the URL. A Wi-Fi code shows a line beginning WIFI: containing the network name and, readably, the password. A contact card shows the vCard text. A plain text code shows exactly its text.
That Wi-Fi case demonstrates a point worth absorbing: anyone who photographs a Wi-Fi QR code can read the password out of it. See making a Wi-Fi QR code for where it is sensible to display one.
Limits
One code is read per image — if several are present, the clearest is returned. Codes printed on strongly curved surfaces, heavily damaged codes, and other barcode types such as Data Matrix or PDF417 are not handled. Everything is processed on your device, so the image is never uploaded.