How to Scan a QR Code on iPhone and Android

Most of the time this takes two seconds: open the camera, point it at the code, tap the banner that appears. If that is working for you, you can stop reading.

The awkward cases are why this page exists. A code on the screen you are already holding. A code someone sent you as a screenshot. An older phone that ignores codes entirely. A laptop with the code on it and no way to point a camera at itself.

On an iPhone

Open the Camera app and hold the code in frame. A banner slides in near the top with the destination on it. Tap the banner.

A few things make the difference between it working instantly and seeming broken:

• Stay at 1x. Scanning uses the main rear camera, so a zoomed-in or ultra-wide shot often will not lock on.
• Hold still for a second. The camera cannot read a code while it is still hunting for focus.
• Fill about a third of the frame. Too far and there is not enough detail. Too close and the camera cannot focus at all.

If no banner ever appears, the setting may be off. Open Settings, then Camera, and check that Scan QR Codes is on.

There is also a dedicated Code Scanner you can add to Control Center from Settings. It opens straight into scanning mode and skips the banner, which is handy if you scan codes often.

On an Android phone

Open the camera app and point it at the code. On most recent phones a link pops up and you tap it.

Android is less uniform than iOS here, because the camera app comes from the phone's maker rather than from Google. So if the camera does nothing, there are two reliable fallbacks on almost every Android phone:

• Google Lens. Either the Lens button inside the camera app, or the Lens icon in the Google search bar. Lens reads codes the camera app sometimes skips.
• The Quick Settings tile. Swipe down from the top and look for a QR code scanner tile. If it is not there, it is usually available in the list of tiles you can add.

On Samsung phones the camera's own switch is the usual culprit: open the camera app, go into its Settings, and turn on Scan QR codes. Some models ship with it off.

Older phones, and what to do instead

iPhones have read codes from the Camera app since iOS 11, which arrived in 2017. Android picked it up across roughly the same period, though exactly when depends on the manufacturer. If your phone predates that, the camera will simply never react.

The honest answer for an older phone is Google Lens, which is free, comes from Google, and works well below the versions where camera scanning arrived.

Be careful with the alternative. Search an app store for "QR scanner" and you get pages of free apps that are supported by advertising, ask for more permissions than reading a code needs, and in some cases log every code you scan. If you must install one, prefer something you already trust over the top result.

A code on the screen you are already holding

This is the case the camera cannot solve, because a phone cannot point its camera at its own screen. It comes up constantly: a code in an email, in a message, inside an app that wants you to scan it with the same phone.

Three ways out, in the order worth trying:

• Take a screenshot, then read the code from the image. Open the screenshot in your photo library and tap the code. On recent iPhones and on Android through Google Lens, the code in a saved image is readable the same way a code on a wall is.
• Press and hold the code itself. In many apps a long press on the image offers to open the link directly, with no screenshot in between. Worth one attempt before anything else.
• Use a second device. If someone else is nearby, their phone reads your screen in a second. Awkward, but it always works.

If you are the one building the thing people scan, this is the argument for not relying on a QR code where a plain tappable link would do. A code on a web page that people open on their phones is a code nobody can scan.

A code in a photo or a screenshot

Someone sends you a picture of a code, or you saved one from a page you have since closed. The code is in your photo library, not in front of you.

• On an iPhone, open the image in Photos and tap the code. If nothing happens, try zooming into the code first so it fills more of the screen.
• On Android, open the image in Google Photos and use the Lens button, or open Lens and choose the image from your gallery.

Two reasons this fails when it should work. The image may be too small or too compressed, which happens often after a code has been forwarded through a few chat apps, and a blurry code is not recoverable. Or the code may be partly cropped, including the clear margin around the pattern, which is part of the code even though it looks like empty space.

If the image is a dead end, ask for the link itself. Anyone who can send a QR code can send what is behind it.

On a laptop or desktop

There is no built-in way to scan a code on most computers, and a webcam is usually pointing at your face rather than at anything you could hold up.

What actually works, in order:

• Scan the laptop screen with your phone. If the code is on the computer and you are not, this is the whole answer.
• If the code is a file on the computer, send it to your phone and read it from the image there.
• If you have no phone to hand, web-based readers accept an image upload and return the link.

One caution on that last one. Uploading a code image to a website hands that site the link inside it, and a code can contain a login link, a ticket, or something else you would not paste into a stranger's form. For anything you would not post publicly, use a phone.

Nothing happens. Why, in order of likelihood

Work down this list rather than across it. The top three cover nearly everything.

• Scanning is switched off, or the camera app on this phone does not do it. Check the setting, or open Google Lens.
• The camera is zoomed in or on the ultra-wide lens. Go back to 1x.
• The lens is dirty. A fingerprint over the camera is the single most common reason a code reads for one person and not for the person standing next to them.
• Distance or focus. Move until the code fills about a third of the frame and hold still for a moment.
• Light. A glare on glossy paper or a laminated sign turns the code into a white rectangle from exactly the angle people stand at. Change your angle before you give up.
• The code itself is broken, which you can confirm in a second: if other codes scan on this phone, the phone is fine.

When it really is the code, the causes are a short list and why your QR code won't scan works through them in order, from contrast and size to a cropped quiet zone.

Before you tap, read the link

The banner shows the destination before it opens it. That half-second is worth using, for one reason: a QR code is a pattern, not a promise, and there is no way to tell by looking where one goes.

The practical version of this is about physical codes in public. A sticker pasted over the original code on a parking meter, a table tent, or a poster looks exactly as legitimate as the thing underneath it. If the destination has nothing to do with the business whose sign you are standing in front of, do not open it. And if a code anywhere asks for a password or a payment you were not expecting, go to the company's site yourself rather than through the code.

Making one, rather than reading one

If you landed here while trying to produce a code rather than scan one, the QR code generator makes a plain code in a few seconds, and a plain code downloads without an account.

For the specific case of letting guests onto your network without reading a password out loud, a WiFi QR code covers what to put in it and where to put it.

Camera first, Lens second, screenshot third. Between those three, there is almost no code you cannot open.