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Redacting Receipts and Shipping Labels: How to Permanently Mask Sensitive Photo Data

SENULA COMPANY · 2026-09-23 · 5 min read

What a receipt photo can give away

Say a pair of headphones arrives and you want to post a review with proof of purchase. Or a buyer on a secondhand marketplace asks to see the original receipt. Most people snap a photo and post it. The trouble is everything else that ends up in the frame.

A paper receipt often shows the last digits of a payment card, an approval or authorization code, the date and time, the store branch, and a register or employee number. A parcel label shows even more: full name, street address, phone number, tracking number, and one or more barcodes that any scanner app can read.

Point-of-sale systems often hide part of a card or phone number with asterisks. That helps, but the digits that remain, combined with the store name and timestamp, can still narrow down who you are. A visible tracking number can also let a stranger look up delivery status and origin on the carrier's website.

Why scribbling over it is not enough

Most phone galleries have a markup pen or highlighter. It looks solid on a small screen, but many highlighter brushes are semi-transparent, and overlapping strokes leave gaps. Turn up the brightness or contrast in any photo editor and the digits underneath can show through again.

The fix is to replace the pixels themselves. A solid black or white box writes new color values over the area, so the original text is no longer in the file at all. Pixelation also replaces pixels. With large print, though, a mosaic can still hint at the shape of the characters, so solid boxes are the safer choice for numbers.

What to cover on each type of document

Not every field matters equally. Use this table as a starting point and adjust it to what you are comfortable sharing.

Barcodes need special attention. Covering only the printed digits under a barcode is not enough, because the bars encode the same number. Cover the whole barcode block, plus any QR code in a corner of the label.

Step by step

1. Photograph the document flat on a table in good light, so the edges of each field are easy to see.
2. Open Redact & Blur Image and choose the photo from your device. It is processed in the browser and never leaves your device.
3. Pick a style: black box, white box or pixelation.
4. Drag a box over the first sensitive field. Repeat for each field. You can mark as many areas as you need on the same image.
5. If a box lands in the wrong spot, use undo. To start over, use clear.
6. Save as JPG, PNG or WebP. The covered pixels are overwritten in the saved file and cannot be restored.
7. Open the saved file and zoom in on every covered area before you post it.

The tool works on one image at a time, so five receipts means running the steps five times. It also does not find numbers or faces on its own. You choose every area yourself. That takes a little longer than an automatic filter would, but it also means nothing gets missed because of an unusual layout.

Two worked examples

Example 1 is a review photo. Mina photographs the receipt for a $39 kitchen scale. The file is receipt_scale.jpg, 4032 × 3024 pixels, about 3.2 MB. She wants to show the price and item name and nothing else. She draws four black boxes: card digits, approval code, register number, and the loyalty member number at the bottom. She saves as JPG and checks each box at full zoom. That is four areas on one file, done in about two minutes.

Example 2 is a marketplace listing. Jun is selling a monitor and wants to show the original parcel label as proof it was bought new. The label has six things to cover: recipient name, street address, phone number, tracking number, the main barcode, and a small QR code. He uses white boxes so the label still looks tidy in the listing. He saves the six-area image as WebP, which is typically smaller than PNG for a photo.

Hidden data inside the file

Covering the visible text is only half the job. Phone photos usually carry EXIF metadata: the time the photo was taken, the phone model, and often GPS coordinates. If you took the receipt photo at your kitchen table, that location can point to your home.

The image saved from the redaction tool has no EXIF data, so the location tag is gone along with the covered text.

This matters most for marketplace listings, where the photo goes to strangers. If you have shared the original file anywhere else, keep in mind that copy still has its metadata.

Common mistakes

• Covering the digits under a barcode but leaving the bars visible.
• Using a highlighter pen and assuming it is opaque.
• Covering the address in one photo, then posting a second angle where it shows.
• Missing reflections, since a glossy label can mirror the address onto a nearby surface.
• Attaching the original file by mistake instead of the saved copy. A clear name such as receipt_scale_redacted.jpg helps.

Checklist before posting

• Every card digit, code and ID is covered.
• The whole barcode and any QR code are covered.
• Name, address and phone are covered on labels.
• The saved copy has been opened and checked at full zoom.
• The saved copy, not the original, is the file attached to the post.

FAQ

Can I redact a receipt that came as a PDF?

The redaction tool does not open PDFs. Take a screenshot of the page or save it as an image first, then add that image.

Is pixelation as safe as a black box?

Pixelation replaces the pixels, and the saved file cannot be reversed. For short numbers in large print, a solid box gives no hint of the characters' shape, so it is the safer option.

Does the tool find card numbers automatically?

No. You drag over each area yourself. Plan on a minute or two per photo.

Before you hit post

A receipt or label photo takes seconds to share and is hard to take back. Spend two minutes covering the fields in Redact & Blur Image, check the saved copy, and post that one.