About the tool
Online Camera: a free camera online for photos and video
Online Camera is a free camera online that turns the webcam in your laptop, a USB web camera or the camera on your phone into a full camera app, right in your browser. There is nothing to download, no account to create and no watermark on your pictures. Open the page, click “Start camera”, allow access, and within seconds you can take a selfie, record a video message or check how you look before a meeting.
Take photos and record video online
As a camera online photo tool, it captures stills as JPG, PNG or WebP at the full resolution your camera supports, with a 3, 5 or 10 second self-timer, 3 or 5 shot burst mode and an optional date stamp. Switch to video and it becomes a video camera online: record with sound to MP4 (or WebM in browsers that can’t write MP4), with no time limit. Every shot lands in a gallery inside your tab, so you can review it and download your favourites one by one or all at once.
A filter camera online with 16 live effects
Online Camera is also a filter camera online. Choose from 16 live filters — Vivid, Warm, Cool, Mono, Noir, Sepia, Vintage, Fade, Dream, Invert, Thermal, Duotone, Comic, Pixel and Retro TV — then fine-tune brightness, contrast, saturation, warmth, hue and softness. Filters run in real time and are baked into both photos and videos, so what you see is what you save. Three of them get asked about most:
- Inverted camera online — the Invert filter flips every colour to its negative for a striking X-ray style look. Press [ or ] to jump between filters.
- Thermal camera online — the Thermal filter maps the brightness of the scene onto a heat-map palette, from deep blue through magenta and orange to white-hot yellow. It’s a visual effect: an ordinary webcam sees light, not heat, so it can’t measure real temperatures.
- Reverse camera online — the preview is mirrored by default, like a real mirror. Press M to reverse it, and decide separately whether saved photos and videos are mirrored, so text in your shots always reads the right way.
Test camera online before your next call
Need to test camera online quickly? The live info panel shows the name of the camera in use, its real-time resolution, measured frame rate, megapixels, aspect ratio, maximum resolution and focus and exposure modes, and you can copy the full report in one click. For a deeper check, the webcam test measures FPS, brightness, sharpness and microphone level, while the resolution test finds every resolution your camera truly supports, from 144p up to 4K.
Works with every web camera and device
Use it as a web camera online with any built-in webcam, external USB camera, document camera, virtual camera such as OBS, or the front and back cameras of a phone. If you have more than one, pick from the list or switch with a single click, and your choice is remembered. It even works as a simple digital camera online, with up to 4× digital zoom plus hardware zoom and flashlight control on phones that support them. Online Camera runs in Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Safari and Opera on Windows, macOS, Linux, ChromeOS, Android and iOS.
Private by design
Unlike many free camera online sites, Online Camera never uploads your images. The camera stream is processed locally in your browser, photos and videos stay in your tab’s memory until you download them, and they disappear when you close it. There are no ads, no sign-up and no tracking of what your camera sees. Read the privacy page for the details.
Use the camera online free, any time
Whether you want a quick selfie, a filtered clip for social media, a mirror before a video call or a way to check that your webcam works, Online Camera has you covered — free, fast and private. Scroll up, press “Start camera” and try it now.