How to remove a timestamp or date stamp from a photo
Old film cameras from the 1990s and early 2000s burned the date directly into the photo in bright orange or red text, usually in the bottom-right corner. Some digital cameras do the same. Whether you are scanning old prints or trying to clean up a digital shot, a burned-in timestamp used to be a 20-minute Photoshop job. This guide shows you the faster path.
Where date stamps come from
Two distinct eras produce most timestamp removal requests. The first is scanned film prints from 1990 to 2005, when cameras like the Canon Sure Shot and Nikon One Touch had a built-in date imprinter that burned digits into the emulsion. Those prints now get scanned and the orange "11 14 '98" or "2001 07 04" in the corner follows them into the digital copy.
The second source is digital cameras, particularly consumer point-and-shoots from the 2000s, that had a "date stamp" mode enabled by default. People who bought a camera without changing the default settings ended up with dates burned into thousands of JPEG files.
In both cases, the timestamp is baked into the image data. There is no separate layer to delete. The only way out is to reconstruct the background behind the text, which is exactly what BOARD's Remove command does.
A quick note on when not to remove it
Before getting to the how, a short word on the when-not-to.
A timestamp on a photo you own, for personal or album use, is yours to edit. Cleaning up a family photo, republishing a portfolio image, or organizing a scanned archive is fine. No one has standing to object to that.
Where it becomes a problem: if the photo is being used as evidence. Insurance companies, lawyers, and courts rely on photo timestamps to establish when something happened. Removing a date stamp from a photo before submitting it to an insurer, a court, or any official investigation is evidence tampering, which is a crime in virtually every jurisdiction. The same applies to security footage screenshots, accident scene photos, and anything else that functions as a record of an event. Do not edit those photos. If you are unsure whether a photo might be used in that context, leave the timestamp alone.
For everything else, read on.
How to remove a bottom-right corner timestamp (the most common case)
Go to brd.ing. Works in Safari, Chrome, Firefox, anywhere. No app install. You get 5 free removals without creating an account.
Drag the file in or tap to pick it from your camera roll or file browser. BOARD scans the image and labels objects it detects. Timestamps often show up as "text" or "date stamp" in the object list.
Tap directly on the orange or red digits in the corner. BOARD highlights the timestamp as a selection. For a standard corner stamp, the selection should cover just the text characters and a thin margin around them.
The text disappears and the background reconstructs. For a corner timestamp on a plain or simple background (grass, carpet, sidewalk, sky), the result is usually clean on the first pass. The corner looks like the date was never there.
Zoom in on the corner where the stamp was. If the reconstruction looks right, tap download. If there is a faint artifact or a color mismatch, tap that spot again and run a second removal pass.
Bottom-edge bar timestamps
Some digital cameras stamped a full-width bar along the bottom of the image: the date, time, and sometimes a location code or model number, all in a single line running edge to edge. These are harder because the bar covers a wide swath of background that has to be reconstructed.
The approach is the same: tap the bar, tap Remove. But for wide bars, you may get a seam where the reconstructed area meets the original image. Tap along the seam and run another removal pass to blend it. For bars that run over complex content (multiple people's feet, a floor with a distinct tile pattern), the result may not be perfect. BOARD gets about 80% of the way there; a final touch-up in any basic editor handles the rest.
What to do when the timestamp overlaps a subject
The trickiest case is a timestamp that runs across a person's arm, a face at the edge of frame, or another part of the scene you care about. Tap the timestamp text specifically (not the whole corner), and check the selection carefully before removing. BOARD should select the text characters rather than the subject behind them.
After removal, zoom in on the area. The AI reconstructs what it estimates was behind the text based on surrounding context. For partial overlap (say, the stamp covers 20% of someone's arm), the result is usually good. For stamps that cover a face or a significant portion of a subject, the reconstruction will be a best guess and may look wrong. In that case, use BOARD to remove as much of the stamp as you can, then use a manual clone-stamp tool in Photoshop or similar for the section crossing the subject.
Faded stamps: Stamps on very old or poorly developed film prints can be faded enough that BOARD has trouble identifying them as a separate object. If tapping the stamp does not produce a clean selection, try tapping a brighter portion of the text, or zoom in more before tapping to give the detection more pixel context to work with.
When BOARD is not enough
A few scenarios where you will still need a manual editor:
- The stamp runs across a face or a very detailed subject and the reconstruction looks wrong after two passes.
- The stamp covers more than 15% of the image area (uncommon, but some cameras really went for it).
- The background behind the stamp is highly repeating and geometric, like a brick wall or a tiled floor with a strict pattern. AI reconstruction occasionally misaligns the pattern.
For these cases, use BOARD to clean up the simpler portions of the stamp and a manual clone-stamp or healing brush for the hard sections. The total time is still far less than doing the whole thing by hand.
Related guides
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- Remove objects from photos free: what each tool actually costs
- Magic Eraser for iPhone: every option compared
- How to remove a logo or watermark from your own photos
Frequently asked
Can you remove a burned-in date stamp from a scanned photo?
Yes. BOARD detects the timestamp as an object and removes it in one tap, filling the corner with whatever background was behind it (grass, sky, carpet, fabric). It works on the orange or red stamped text common on 1990s and 2000s film prints. Very faded or overlapping stamps may need a second pass.
Is removing a date stamp from a photo legal?
For personal use on photos you own, yes. Removing a date stamp from a personal album photo or a camera photo you took is fine. Do not remove a timestamp from any photo that will be used as evidence in an insurance claim, legal case, or official investigation. Altering that kind of photo can constitute evidence tampering.
What is the easiest way to remove a timestamp from a photo on iPhone?
Open brd.ing in Safari. Upload the photo. Tap the timestamp. Tap Remove. Download the result. No app install, no account required for the first 5 edits. The whole process takes about 20 seconds for a clean corner timestamp.
What if the timestamp overlaps with a person's face or a subject I care about?
Tap just the timestamp text rather than the full corner area. Use the refine step to tighten the selection to the text itself. BOARD will remove the timestamp while preserving the subject behind it. Results vary depending on how much of the subject is covered, but for partial overlap it usually works well.
Does BOARD remove timestamps from videos?
No. BOARD is image-only. For video timestamps, you would need a video editor with a mask or blur tool, such as CapCut's text removal feature or DaVinci Resolve's manual mask workflow.
Date stamp gone. Photo restored.
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