Crop Image
Crop images to any size with aspect-ratio presets.
Your files never leave your device. No upload. No sign-up.
Drop an image here, or click to upload
JPG, PNG, WebP, or GIF
Load an image, drag a rectangle over the part you want to keep, and download the cropped copy. The tool decodes your image with the browser's built-in image decoder, draws it to an HTML5 canvas, and exports the selected region as PNG or JPEG. Nothing is uploaded — decoding, cropping, and encoding all happen in your browser tab. It works with JPEG, PNG, WebP, and the first frame of GIFs, and aspect-ratio presets match Instagram, Twitter/X, LinkedIn, YouTube, and passport-photo dimensions.
About the Crop Image
Crop any image to the perfect shape — square for social profiles, 16:9 for video thumbnails, or freeform for anything else. Drag the crop box, fine-tune the edges, and download the cropped image in its original format. Everything runs in your browser, so your photos stay private.
How to use the Crop Image
- 1Drag and drop your image, or click to choose it from your device.
- 2Pick an aspect-ratio preset, or stick with Free for any shape.
- 3Drag the crop box and its corners to frame the area you want to keep.
- 4Click “Download cropped image” to save the result in the original format.
Why use our Crop Image
Interactive crop box
Drag the box to position and pull any corner or edge to resize.
Aspect-ratio presets
Snap to 1:1, 4:3, 16:9, or work freeform without constraints.
Format-preserving
JPG stays JPG, PNG stays PNG — no surprise format changes.
100% private
Cropping runs locally with the Canvas API — your image is never uploaded.
How the crop happens in your browser
When you drop an image on the tool, a FileReader reads the bytes and hands them to an in-memory HTMLImageElement. That element is drawn to an off-screen HTML5 canvas at its full native resolution. The rectangle you drag on the preview is stored in display-space coordinates and translated back to the original pixel grid using the ratio between the preview size and the image's naturalWidth / naturalHeight. Once you confirm the crop, canvas.toBlob() encodes only the selected region as PNG or JPEG and hands you a downloadable blob. There is no round trip to a server: the file that leaves the tool never travelled beyond the tab, which is why the tool can promise a strict no-upload guarantee.
Who uses image cropping and when
Ecommerce sellers crop product photos to the 1:1 square that Amazon, Etsy, and Shopify recommend for the primary image. Recruiters and applicants crop headshots to the 4:5 portrait ratio LinkedIn shows in the feed. Social media managers crop the same asset to a 1080×1080 square post, a 1080×1350 portrait post, and a 1080×1920 story or Reel so a single shoot serves every placement. Passport-photo services crop to the exact 600×600 pixels the US State Department accepts and the 35×45 mm ratio the UK Passport Office requires. Support engineers crop screenshots to hide names and account numbers before pasting them into a ticket, and academics crop figures out of PDF pages before slotting them into a slide.
Common mistakes and limitations
Cropping never adds pixels. If you crop a 400×400 region and expect a 1080×1080 Instagram post, Instagram will upscale it and the result will look soft — always crop from an image at least as large as the target output. Animated GIFs lose their animation because canvas.toBlob captures a single frame; export the first frame consciously or use a dedicated animated-GIF tool. EXIF orientation used to be a common gotcha — a phone photo tagged as "rotate 90° right" would appear sideways on desktop — but modern Chromium, Firefox, and Safari now honour the EXIF Orientation tag when decoding, so images appear upright. Note that re-encoding strips EXIF entirely, so location, camera model, and orientation metadata are removed from the cropped output. HEIC/HEIF from iPhones is only decoded by Safari; convert to JPEG first on non-Apple browsers. Files above roughly 100 megapixels can exceed mobile memory limits and fail to decode.
Common crop aspect ratios and where they're used
| Ratio | Recommended pixels | Used for |
|---|---|---|
| 1:1 | 1080 × 1080 | Instagram square post, Facebook profile |
| 4:5 | 1080 × 1350 | Instagram portrait (tallest feed image) |
| 9:16 | 1080 × 1920 | Instagram / TikTok Reels and Stories |
| 16:9 | 1920 × 1080 | YouTube thumbnail, desktop wallpaper |
| 3:2 | 1500 × 1000 | DSLR photo print, 6×4 postcard |
| 2:3 | 1000 × 1500 | Pinterest pin, movie poster |
| 4:3 | 1600 × 1200 | Older cameras, iPad screenshots |
| 1.91:1 | 1200 × 630 | Facebook / LinkedIn / OpenGraph link preview |
| US passport | 600 × 600 (2×2 in @ 300 DPI) | US visa and passport photo |
| UK passport | 413 × 531 (35 × 45 mm) | UK passport and biometric residence permit |
Social platform specs change occasionally — verify with the platform's help centre before a large campaign.
Frequently asked questions
Is my image uploaded to a server?+
No. The file is read into memory by a FileReader, decoded to an HTMLImageElement, drawn on a canvas, and re-encoded — all inside your browser tab. There is no network request during any step of the crop.
What image formats can I crop?+
JPEG, PNG, WebP, and GIF (first frame only). AVIF works in browsers that decode it — Chrome 85+, Firefox 93+, Safari 16+. HEIC/HEIF from iPhones only decodes in Safari; on Chrome or Firefox, convert to JPEG or PNG first.
Does cropping reduce image quality?+
The crop itself is pixel-exact. Re-encoding to JPEG at a lower quality can introduce compression artefacts; exporting as PNG preserves every pixel of the selected region without loss.
Why is my cropped file bigger than the original?+
Usually because the original was a highly compressed JPEG and the crop was re-encoded as PNG. PNG is lossless and can be several times the size of an equivalent JPEG. Export as JPEG at 0.85 quality to match typical photo compression.
Can I keep transparency when cropping a PNG?+
Yes — export as PNG. If you export as JPEG, transparent pixels are replaced with white because JPEG has no alpha channel.
Does the tool preserve EXIF metadata?+
No. Re-encoding through a canvas strips EXIF, including camera model, GPS location, and orientation. This is usually a privacy plus — cropped photos leave with no location tag — but be aware if you need to preserve capture metadata.
Can I crop animated GIFs?+
The tool captures the first frame only. For animated GIF cropping you need a purpose-built animated-image tool that preserves the frame sequence and timing.
Why does my aspect ratio look slightly off after cropping?+
Selection is rounded to whole pixels, so a 3:2 crop on a 1001-pixel-wide image will not be an exact 3:2 ratio (it'll be 1000×666 or 999×666). Start from an image whose width or height is divisible by the ratio dimensions to avoid the drift.
Can I crop to exact pixel dimensions?+
Yes — after selecting an aspect ratio, you can drag the handles until the pixel readout matches the size you need. The tool shows the output pixel dimensions as you drag.
What's the maximum file size?+
The tool caps individual uploads at 100 MB to prevent mobile browsers from running out of memory. Files above roughly 100 megapixels of resolution may fail to decode on lower-end phones even under the size cap.
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