QR Code Scanner

Why scanning on a computer is useful

QR codes increasingly turn up on screens: two-factor setup pages, payment requests in a PDF, event tickets in an email, a Wi-Fi code in a shared document. Pointing a phone at your own monitor works, but then the result is on the wrong device. Scanning the screenshot directly puts the link or text exactly where you need it, ready to copy.

It also helps with codes that phones struggle with: a tiny code in a large photo, a washed-out print, or a light-on-dark design. If the first attempt finds nothing, the scanner retries at different sizes, with boosted contrast and with the colours inverted.

What the scanner recognises

Links

Shown in full, with the real host name, before you decide to open them.

Wi-Fi

The network name, security type and password, each with a copy button — handy for joining from a laptop.

Contacts

vCard and MECARD codes are read into name, company, phone numbers, emails, websites and address.

Email, phone and SMS

mailto:, tel:, SMSTO: and MATMSG codes are shown as recipient, subject and message.

Locations

geo: codes show the coordinates with a link to the map.

Anything else

Plain text, IDs and codes in other formats are shown as raw text, ready to copy.

Check before you open: QR code phishing

A QR code is a link you cannot read, which is exactly why criminals stick fake codes on parking meters and send them in "your parcel is waiting" emails. The scanner never opens anything by itself: it shows the complete address first and flags the patterns phishing links rely on.

None of these flags proves a link is malicious, and a clean result does not prove it is safe — but if a code on a car park sign leads to a shortened link on a domain you have never heard of, do not enter your card details there. The warning signs it looks for:

• Look-alike names such as paypa1.com, or a well-known brand used as a subdomain of someone else's site (paypal.com.account-check.io).
• Punycode (xn--) host names, which can display as letters from other alphabets that look identical to Latin ones.
• Bare IP addresses, unusual ports and user names placed before the host to disguise where the link really goes.
• Link shorteners, which hide the final destination, and plain http links that are not encrypted.

Getting a difficult code to scan

Most failed scans come down to the image rather than the code. The decoder needs to see the three square corner patterns and a little empty border around the code, so a crop that clips the edge will fail even if the rest is perfect. Blur is the next most common problem: a code photographed from a moving hand or at an angle loses the sharp boundaries between modules.

If a photo does not work, take another one straight on, closer, and in even light, or zoom into a screenshot before capturing it. Codes printed on curved bottles and cans scan best when the code faces the camera directly. Very dense codes, such as long vCards, need more pixels per module than a short link, so a higher-resolution image helps. With the camera, move slowly and give the autofocus a moment — the scanner checks several frames a second, so it usually reads as soon as the picture is sharp.

Camera scanning and privacy

With the camera on, a few frames a second are decoded by a WebAssembly QR reader in the page. The video is not recorded or sent anywhere, the camera stops as soon as you switch tabs or leave, and scan history lives only in this tab until you close it. If you made the code yourself, you can tweak its design in the QR code generator and check it here again.