How to blur part of a video on your Mac

QuickTime Player, Photos and iMovie can't blur part of a video: none of Apple's guides for them lists a blur or a redact tool. The built-in workaround is to crop the thing out of the frame. Koi's Redact covers it: drag the video with Shift held, drop it on More, click Redact, draw a box over what should be hidden and pick Blur or Solid. The box stays for the whole video.

We make Koi, so read the Koi part with that in mind. Everything about Koi here is what version 1.13 does. Apple's steps come from its Photos, iMovie and QuickTime guides, checked October 21, 2026.

When what you need to hide sits near an edge, like a name in a corner or the Dock at the bottom of a screen recording, cropping removes it for good.

1. Open the video in Photos, double-click it and click Edit.
2. Click Crop and drag the box so the thing you want to hide is outside it.
3. Click Done, then choose File, Export to save a copy.

Apple's Photos guide covers cropping photos and videos. iMovie's Crop to Fill works too, but Apple says its frame is locked to 16:9. Neither helps when the thing is in the middle of the picture. Trimming works when it only shows for a moment: cut those seconds out instead.

QuickTime Player can't help here: its editing tools are trim, split, rearrange, rotate and remove audio or video.

1. Start dragging the video in Finder or on your desktop.
2. While you're still holding it, press and hold Shift. The video wheel opens round your pointer.
3. Drop the video on More. The wheel turns into Split, Metadata, Redact and Convert.
4. Click Redact. Its window opens with the video playing.
5. Pick Blur or Solid. Solid covers it in black.
6. Click Hide a part and draw a box over what should be hidden. Draw as many as you need.
7. Move or resize a box by dragging it. Remove this box takes one out.
8. Click Redact. The copy lands beside the original and shows in Finder.

• Each box stays in the same place for the whole video.
• Space plays and pauses, and ← and → step a frame at a time, so you can check the box covers it all the way through.
• The picture is encoded again in H.264, which plays nearly everywhere.
• The original is never touched. It runs on your Mac. Nothing is uploaded.

Editing the video anyway? Drop it on Edit instead. The Redact panel in Edit Video draws the same boxes with Hide a part, Blur or Solid picked at the top of the panel, and the copy you export has them along with your cuts, crop, speed and background. That's the quicker route for a screen recording you're polishing, where an email address or a notification needs covering.

• Use Solid for anything secret: a password, a card number, an address, a code. Black hides it completely.
• Use Blur for things that should just stop drawing the eye: a background person, a brand on a shelf, an app you'd rather not show.
• Make the box a little bigger than the thing, so nothing peeks out at the edges. Play the copy through once before you share it.

• The sound. A name said out loud isn't hidden by a box. In Edit Video, split round it and mute that piece.
• The file itself. A phone video can carry where and when it was made, and on what. More, then Metadata, shows it and saves a clean copy. Edit Video's Details leaves it out when you export.
• The first frame. Many apps show it as the preview before anyone presses play. Make sure it's covered too.
• Notifications and tabs in a screen recording. A message preview can show a name for a second. Scrub through and box them, or trim those seconds.

For footage where faces move the whole time, like a street or a crowd, you need an editor that tracks them. Koi's fixed boxes are made for screens, documents and shots that hold still.

• It doesn't track. A box stays in one place, so a face that walks across the frame leaves it. Split the video into short parts, or crop instead.
• It doesn't find faces in a video. On a picture, Koi's image Redact has Find Faces or Text; on a video you draw the boxes yourself.
• It covers the box for the whole video, not just a few seconds. If something only shows for a moment, trimming it out may be cleaner.
• The video's file can still say where and when it was made. Metadata, also under More, saves a clean copy without it.

Hiding something in a photo or a screenshot instead? Koi's Shift wheel has Redact for pictures too, with Find Faces or Text: see how to blur faces in a photo. Related: crop a video and trim a video.

Photos, QuickTime and iMovie are free. Koi has no free plan: Pro is $20 a month, or $192 a year, after a 3-day free trial that needs a card. Lifetime is paid once, from $59. The Shift wheel uses no AI, so it never counts against Koi's usage. See the plans.