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Redactly

Guide

How to blur a license plate in a video before posting

A plate rarely sits still in a shot, so the tool doing the blurring needs to track it, not just cover one spot.

The reliable way to blur a license plate in a video before posting is an app that detects the plate, tracks it as the car or the camera moves, and exports a blurred copy — like Redactly on iPhone. People usually need this when selling a car and posting a listing video, sharing dashcam footage of an incident, or posting street or vlog video with parked cars in the background. In every case, the plate moves relative to the frame at some point, so a fixed blur box slips off within a second or two. It’s also worth checking whether your clip carries location metadata — that can put the same address back into a post even after the plate itself is hidden.

Steps

Blurring a plate with tracking

This covers a plate as it moves through the shot, then confirms it before you export.

  1. Install Redactly and open the clip

    Import the video from Photos or Files, or record it in the app. It's processed on your iPhone and never uploaded anywhere.

  2. Let it scan for plates

    Redactly lists every detected plate under License plates with its timecode. Plate detection uses a deliberately conservative heuristic, so it flags anything that looks like a plate for you to confirm, rather than deciding silently.

  3. Confirm each region, and add any it missed

    Check that the flagged region is actually the plate — angled, partial or distant plates sometimes need a manual region drawn or resized to fit properly.

  4. Turn on motion tracking

    A plate moves as the car pulls away or the camera pans, so the cover needs to follow it. If tracking becomes uncertain partway through, Redactly widens the covered area rather than risk exposing a frame, and tells you exactly where.

  5. Pick a style and check it with the before/after slider

    Blur is enough for most plates; Pixelate or Block (Redactly Pro) give a harder, unambiguous cover. Drag the before/after slider in Preview and scrub the clip to confirm the plate is unreadable in every frame it appears.

  6. Export

    Save to Photos or share. This also strips the location and camera metadata your iPhone attaches to the file by default — worth doing regardless of the plate, since GPS coordinates in the file can put the same address back into a post the blur was meant to protect.

Redactly flags every plate for you to confirm, tracks it across frames, and strips location metadata on export.

Download on theApp Store

Alternatives

Other ways to do it, and the trade-offs

Cropping the frame in Photos

If the plate sits in a corner you can afford to lose, a permanent crop removes it. The trade-off is that the same rectangle is cropped from every frame — it only works if the plate never moves outside it, and you lose whatever else was in that area, in every frame.

iMovie

No built-in blur, pixelate or mosaic effect. You could add a static graphic over part of the frame, but nothing that tracks a moving plate.

Desktop editors (Premiere Pro, DaVinci Resolve, Final Cut Pro)

A mosaic or blur effect with motion tracking, generally more precise than a phone app once it's set up. The trade-off is software cost, a real learning curve, and moving the footage to a computer and back.

Online video-blurring tools

Convenient for a one-off clip, but you're uploading the footage to redact it — and most don't say whether they also strip the file's location metadata, so check before assuming the plate is the only identifying thing they've handled.

Redactly

Detects and tracks plates on-device, strips location and camera metadata on export, and is free with no watermark or length limit at up to 1080p; Pro adds full-resolution export up to 4K plus Pixelate and Block.

FAQ

Questions people ask about this

Why does a plate need tracking instead of one blur box?
A plate almost never sits still relative to the frame — the car pulls away, the camera pans, a dashcam bounces. A fixed blur only covers the position the plate started at, so it slips off within a second or two of real motion.
Does Redactly know a plate from any rectangle in frame?
Plate detection uses a conservative heuristic and flags every hit for you to confirm — it's a supported region type, not a guarantee of catching every plate automatically. Always check the flagged regions, and draw one manually if a partial or angled plate was missed.
Does blurring the plate also remove where the video was shot?
No — that's separate. Location lives in the video file's metadata, not in the visible frame. Redactly's export strips the location and camera metadata iPhone attaches by default, but that's independent of which regions you've blurred.
Can I blur just the plate and leave everything else visible?
Yes. Every detected region — faces, text and plates — can be deselected individually, so only what you choose to redact gets covered.
Do I need Redactly Pro to blur a plate?
No. Detection, editing, preview and export are free for any video length, with no watermark, using the Blur style at up to 1080p. Pro adds full-resolution export up to 4K and the Pixelate and Block styles.
What if the plate is only partly visible or at an angle?
Add or adjust the region manually — draw it on the canvas, then move and resize it to fit the visible portion. It tracks from there the same as an automatically detected one.

More on how detection and export work in the app is in the support FAQ.