Auto Video Blur vs Discretion
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Auto Video Blur
Automatically detect and blur faces, eyes, mouths, people, or text in videos. Apply various filters like pixelize, monochrome, or glitter. You can also blur specific areas or the entire video and save in MOV or MP4 format.
- Automatic face, eye, mouth, person, and text detection
- Apply blur, pixelize, monochrome, glitter, and other filters
- Selective blurring of recognized or unrecognized areas
- Full video filtering options
- Save videos in MOV or MP4 format
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Auto Video Blur is an iPhone app that uses AI to automatically detect faces, eyes, mouths, people (full body) and text in your videos, then blurs or pixelates them. Just pick a video and tap what to hide, with no need to mark areas frame by frame. Blur kids' faces, censor strangers who wander into the shot, and hide name tags or addresses before posting to social media or video sites. The core features are free. All detection and editing happens on your iPhone, and your videos are never uploaded to a server. Saved videos have no logo or watermark. GREAT FOR • Blurring other kids' faces in videos from field day or a dance recital before sharing them online • Blurring the faces of people who prefer not to be shown (Pro) • Blurring strangers' faces in travel vlogs and street footage • Hiding text caught on camera, like name tags, house numbers, addresses, license plates and signs • Hiding names and messages in screen recordings • Blurring only the background so people stand out (Pro) • Covering faces with cute emoji stickers KEY FEATURES ■ What the AI detects automatically • Face • Eyes (cover just the eyes) • Mouth • People (full body) • Text (signs, license plates, on-screen text) • All (apply a filter to the whole video) Detection runs on every frame, so the blur follows its target even when people or the camera move. ■ Choose People to Hide Blur selected faces and keep others visible. Confirm the same person in other scenes as needed. Scenes awaiting review keep all detected faces blurred. Try selection and preview for free; saving requires Pro. ■ 30 ways to hide (filters) Pixelate, Blur, Sparkle, Monochrome, Motion H, Motion V, Motion D, Zoom, Crystallize, Hexagonal, Triangle, Pointillize, Halftone, Dither, CRT, VHS, Holo, Sketch, Painting, Woodcut, Edges, Rain Glass, Liquid, Prism, Chromatic Aberration, Double, Saturation, Sepia, Posterize, Duotone. Adjust the strength with a slider. ■ Stickers that follow faces (49 types) Besides black or white squares, hide faces with emoji like smiling faces, sunglasses, animals and hearts. Stickers move with each face, and you can resize them. ■ Manually select blur area Drag on the preview to draw a box, and that area stays hidden from start to finish. A handy backup for anything auto-detection misses. ■ Fine-tuning • Padding: enlarge the hidden area so nothing peeks out • Edge blur: soften the border of the hidden area • Invert area: hide everything except what was detected (Pro) • Multiple targets at once, e.g. faces and text together (Pro) ■ Editing and saving • Trim: keep only the part you need • Audio on/off • Quality: 720p / 1080p / 4K (4K is Pro). Never exported above the original resolution. • File type: MOV / MP4 (MP4 is Pro) • Recording date and location are removed when you save (Keep date & location is Pro) • Import from Photos or the Files app / iCloud Drive • On iOS 26 or later, exporting continues even if you switch apps while saving FREE VS. PRO EDITION The free version auto-blurs faces, eyes, mouths, people and text, and includes 14 filters, 17 stickers, Manually select blur area and Trim (with ads). The Pro Edition is a one-time purchase, not a subscription. Buy once and keep it forever. • All 30 filters • All 49 stickers • Blur multiple targets at once • Save with only chosen faces blurred • Invert area (hide just the background) • Save in 4K and MP4 • Keep date & location when saving • No ads FAQ Q. Are my videos sent over the internet? A. No. Detection and editing happen on your iPhone. Q. What if something isn't hidden automatically? A. Add a box with "Manually select blur area" to hide it on top of auto-detection. Faces in profile, small faces and dark scenes are harder to detect, so check the preview first. Q. Can it hide license plates and text on signs? A. Yes. Choose "Text" as the target. To hide text together with faces, turn on "Also blur text". REQUIREMENTS iPhone with iOS 17 or later
Discretion
Securely share photos by masking sensitive information and removing hidden data. Protect identities with customizable masks and anonymize filenames. This app offers robust privacy controls for images before sharing.
- Automatic and manual face masking
- Metadata removal (GPS, camera settings)
- Anonymous filename simplification
- Layer flattening and TIFF removal
- Video removal from Live Photos
- Privacy Report
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Share photos without worrying about sensitive data being seen. Add masks to securely protect identities. These and other features like metadata removal, layer flattening, and anonymous filenames let you share images on your terms, not theirs. Face Masking Features • Optional: Automatic masking / Manual masking / No masking • Built in Mask Editor: • Add and remove masks • Precision edits to the mask size and position • Change each mask's shape and style Automatic face detection is done privately on-device using two different face detection algorithms with combined results for better coverage. Automatic privacy features • Removes tracking metadata - including date, time, location information (GPS coordinates), camera settings, equipment, operating system, editing software and more. • Simplifies the filename to a two digit number like "01.jpg" (to help prevent source tracing) • Flattens PSD files • Removes hidden TIFF files • Removes video from Live Photo These all help prevent unwarranted data mining and reduce the data available for digital fingerprinting. The results can be viewed in the Discretion photo Privacy Report within the app. Sharing Discretion is ideal for sharing privacy enhanced photos to social media. You are not limited to social media sites though! The Discretion app uses the standard share sheet, so you can do anything you can normally do with an image file. Other features • Supports Light / Dark mode • Dynamic text resizing • No watermark • Emoji Mask (standard smilie only! see Complete Discretion for more information) • iPad - split screen • iPad - hardware keyboard support • iPad - drag and drop support * Complete Discretion * Discretion is free to download and use. Complete Discretion is an enhanced version of Discretion available as an in-app purchase. With Complete Discretion you get all the features of Discretion plus: • Unlock access to every single system emoji for creating masks • Unlock access to Genmoji masks on Apple Intelligence supported devices • Unlock access to Memoji and sticker masks on iOS 18+ and iPadOS 18+ • Batch processing - up to ten images processed at a time • Support independent development Terms of Use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is review sentiment: Discretion at 100% against Auto Video Blur's 0%. Discretion also leads on rating (5.0 vs 4.3) and ads (none vs shown). Auto Video Blur's advantage is ratings volume (32 vs 2). On price, update cadence, in-app purchases and monetization model there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Auto Video Blur sells 2 one-off in-app purchases and Discretion sells 4 in-app purchases, starting at $1.99 per year. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
Discretion holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.3. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Auto Video Blur has 32 ratings behind it against 2, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 0% of Auto Video Blur's written reviews are positive against 100% of Discretion's.
Auto Video Blur ships an update every 5 weeks, Discretion every 2 months. Both last shipped on November 3, 2026.
| Parameter | Auto Video Blur | Discretion |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.3 (32 ratings) | 5.0 (2 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 0.0% of reviews | 100.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 32 — better | 2 |
| Update frequency | Every 5 weeks — better | Every 2 months |
| Ads | Yes | No — better |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free with in-app purchases |
| Devices | iPhone | iPhone, iPad, iPod, Mac — better |
| Requires iOS | 17 | 15.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 25 MB | 97 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Osawa Shunsuke | David Kennedy |
Customer experience
Auto Video Blur
Discretion
In-app purchases
Auto Video Blur
- Support for development$2.99
- Pro Edition$3.99
Discretion
- Yearly Complete7 Days trial$1.991 Year
- Yearly Family Complete$2.991 Year
- Life-Time Complete$4.99
- Life-Time Family Complete$7.99
Questions
Is Auto Video Blur free?
Is Discretion free?
Which has better reviews, Auto Video Blur or Discretion?
Do Auto Video Blur or Discretion have ads?
Which is updated more often, Auto Video Blur or Discretion?
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