QR code reader
See what a QR code holds before you open it.
Choose a picture of a code, drop one here, or paste it. It is read on this device, and the picture goes nowhere.
Reader
How the reader works
Choose a picture of a QR code, drop one on the tile, or paste one from the clipboard. The same decoders that check every download on this site read it here, on your device. Nothing is uploaded, and once the answer is on screen the picture is let go.
Why a link is shown, not opened
A QR code is only a way of writing text down, and the text is often a web address. Anyone can print a code and stick it over another, so a code is worth reading before it is followed. This page sets the address in plain type with the name of the site in heavy letters, and it is never a link you can tap. Read the name, decide whether it is the one you expected, and then open it yourself or leave it.
What a redirect service is
Some codes do not hold the address you end up at. They hold a short address on a redirect service, a link shortener or a QR code service, which keeps the real destination on its own server. When the code is scanned, the phone asks that service where to go and is sent on. That is how such a code can be edited after it is printed. It is also why the code depends on the service: whoever runs it decides where the link leads, and can change it or switch it off. When an address is on a service this page knows, it says so. The list is short, so an address that is not on it may still be a redirect.
Make this a StoneQR code
The button hands what the code holds to the generator with the form already filled in: a WiFi network, a contact, an event, a link. The new code holds exactly what the old one did, computed in your browser, with no account and no server of ours in between. If the old code holds a redirect address, the new one still does; to get a code that holds the page itself, put that page's address in the Web address box. Then no redirect service stands between the code and the page.
When a picture will not read
Crop closer to the code but keep its white border, use a sharper picture, add more light, and make sure the whole code is in view. A screenshot of a code on a screen usually reads better than a photo of a code on paper.