QR Code Reader
Scan a QR code from an image or your camera and see the full destination, with a safety check for disguised links. Nothing is uploaded.
Contents
Related tools
All QR tools →This tool runs entirely in your browser. Nothing you enter is sent to our servers, so there is nothing for us to store or see.
About the QR Code Reader
Read a QR code from a screenshot, a photograph or your camera, and see exactly what it contains before anything opens.
That last part is the point. A QR code is unreadable to a human, which is what makes it useful and what makes it dangerous: you cannot tell by looking whether the code on a parking meter, a restaurant table or a parcel goes where it claims. Printing a sticker and placing it over a real one costs nothing and works, which is why this is now a standard phishing technique with a name — quishing.
So the destination is shown in full, and the things that make a link suspicious are called out: a host written in punycode, where letters from another alphabet can be visually identical to Latin ones; credentials before the host, which is the classic way of disguising where a link actually goes; a URL shortener, which hides the target twice over inside a code that already hides it once; a bare IP address; and plain HTTP.
Wi-Fi networks, contact cards, calendar events, phone numbers, emails, texts and coordinates are all decoded into readable fields rather than shown as raw payload text. And an open Wi-Fi network gets a warning of its own.
Everything happens on your device — the image is decoded in your browser and the camera stream never leaves it.
How to use the QR Code Reader
-
Add an image or use your camera
Drop in a screenshot or photo of the code, or start the camera and hold the code in front of it.
-
Read the contents
Whatever the code holds is decoded into named fields — a network and its password, a contact's details, or the full web address.
-
Check the warnings
Anything suspicious about a link is explained above the result. Read it before you open anything.
-
Open or copy
Copy the contents, or follow the link once you are satisfied it goes where it should.
Frequently asked questions
Is it safe to scan a QR code from a stranger?
Scanning is safe; opening what it contains may not be. The risk is that a code is a link you cannot inspect, so people follow it without the check they would apply to a link in an email. Sticking a printed code over a legitimate one — on a parking meter, a charging point, a restaurant table — is common enough to have a name. Reading it here first shows you the destination without opening it.
What makes a QR code link suspicious?
A host written in punycode, since some non-Latin letters are visually identical to Latin ones. A username before the host, because everything before the @ is credentials and not the destination. A URL shortener, which hides the real target. A bare IP address instead of a domain. Plain HTTP. Any of these on a code you did not print yourself is worth a second look.
Can it read a code from a photograph rather than a screenshot?
Usually. It copes with moderate blur, angle and uneven lighting, because a QR code carries error correction that can recover a significant fraction of a damaged symbol. What defeats it is a code that is badly out of focus, cropped so a corner square is missing, or photographed at a steep angle across a curved surface.
Why can I not scan a code shown on the same phone?
Because the camera cannot see the screen it is on. Take a screenshot instead and drop the image in here — that path works exactly the same way, and is also how you read a code someone has sent you in a message.
Is my image or camera stream uploaded?
No. The decoder runs entirely in your browser, and the camera stream is read frame by frame on your device and never transmitted. Nothing is stored, which matters given how often a QR code contains a Wi-Fi password or someone's contact details.