Runs in your browser. Your files and text never leave your device - nothing is uploaded.
Crop an Image Into a Circle Online
The Tools Kit’s free Circle Crop turns any photo into a round image in a couple of clicks. Upload a picture, choose Circle or Rounded Square, and download a transparent PNG that is ready to use as a circular profile picture, avatar, team headshot, or rounded icon. There is no account to create and no watermark on the result.
Everything happens on a canvas in your browser, so the photo never leaves your device. The tool picks the crop area for you: it takes the largest square from the center of the image, then clips that square to the shape you selected.
How to Use Circle Crop
- 1
Upload an image
Click the upload area or drag a photo onto it. Any image your browser can display, such as a JPG, PNG, or WebP, will work.
- 2
Choose Circle or Rounded Square
Pick Circle for a round profile picture, or Rounded Square for soft corners. With Rounded Square, drag the Corner Radius slider anywhere from 0% to 50%.
- 3
Click Crop Image
The tool takes the largest square from the center of your photo and clips it to the shape you chose. The preview switches to the cropped result over a checkerboard so you can see the transparent area.
- 4
Download the PNG
Click Download to save a transparent PNG named after the shape and your original file, for example circle_photo.png.
Changed your mind about the shape or radius? Adjust it and click Crop Image again before you download. Clear removes the image so you can start over with another photo.
How the Center Square Crop Works
A circle has to fit inside a square, so the first step is always a square crop. The side of that square is the shorter side of your photo, and equal amounts are trimmed from both ends of the longer side so the square sits exactly in the middle.
For example, a 1200 × 800 landscape photo gives an 800 × 800 square: 200 pixels are removed from the left edge and 200 from the right. A 3000 × 4000 portrait photo gives a 3000 × 3000 square, with 500 pixels removed from the top and 500 from the bottom. The circle is then drawn with a diameter equal to that full side, so it touches all four edges of the square.
The result keeps the original resolution; nothing is scaled down. If your subject is not in the middle of the frame, use the Image Cropper to cut a square around it first, then bring that square here to make it round.
Circle vs Rounded Square: Choosing a Corner Radius
Rounded Square gives you a square image with curved corners, the style used for many app icons and tile-style profile photos. The Corner Radius slider runs from 0% to 50%, measured against half the square’s side. On the 800 × 800 square above, the default 20% gives each corner an 80-pixel radius, 10% gives 40 pixels, and 50% gives 400 pixels.
- 0% — sharp corners, a plain square crop.
- 10-25% — softly rounded corners for icons, thumbnails, and cards.
- 30-45% — very round corners, edging toward a circle.
- 50% — the corners meet, producing the same full circle as the Circle option.
Why the Round Image Downloads as a Transparent PNG
Outside the circle there is nothing to show, so those pixels are saved as fully transparent. PNG stores that transparency; JPG cannot, and would fill the corners with a solid color. That is why the download is always a PNG, and why you should keep it as a PNG if you want the round shape to sit on a colored website, slide, or document background.
A full-resolution PNG can be larger than you need for a profile picture. Shrink it to a typical avatar size such as 400 × 400 with the Image Resizer, or convert it with PNG to WebP for a smaller file on a website.
Common uses
- Making a circular profile picture or avatar for social media, forums, or chat apps
- Creating round headshots for a team, staff, or speaker page
- Turning a logo or photo into a rounded app or website icon
- Producing round thumbnails for slides, newsletters, and portfolios
- Preparing a round cut-out to place over another design or background
For a headshot with no background at all, run the photo through the Background Remover before cropping. To turn a rounded logo into browser tab icons, feed the PNG to the Favicon Generator. Got an iPhone photo in HEIC format? Convert it with HEIC to JPG first, since most browsers cannot open HEIC directly. More editing tools are collected on the Image Tools page.
Circle crop terms explained
| Term | What it means here |
|---|---|
| Center crop | Cutting the largest possible square from the middle of the image, trimming equal amounts from both long edges |
| Mask / clipping path | The circle or rounded-square outline; pixels inside it are kept, pixels outside it are discarded |
| Corner radius | How far each rounded corner curves, set here as a percentage of half the square’s side (0-50%) |
| Transparent background | The area outside the shape has no color at all, so the image sits cleanly on any background |
| PNG | A lossless image format that supports transparency, which is why the cropped result is saved as PNG |
| Aspect ratio | The width-to-height ratio of an image; every Circle Crop output is 1:1 (square) |
Frequently Asked Questions
Upload the photo, keep the Circle shape selected, and click Crop Image. The tool takes the largest square from the center of the image, clips it to a circle, and shows the result. Click Download to save it as a transparent PNG.
Yes. Circle Crop is free to use with no account, no watermark, and no limit on how many images you crop.
No. The tool always uses the largest square from the center of the image. If your subject is off-center, crop the photo to a square around the subject with the Image Cropper first, then run it through Circle Crop.
Because PNG supports transparency. Everything outside the circle or rounded square is fully transparent, so the image sits cleanly on any background. A JPG cannot store transparency, so those corners would be filled with a solid color.
The output is a square whose side equals the shorter side of your original image, at full resolution. A 1200 x 800 photo produces an 800 x 800 PNG, and a 3000 x 4000 photo produces a 3000 x 3000 PNG. The tool does not resize, so use an image resizer afterward if you need a specific pixel size.
Choose Rounded Square, set the Corner Radius slider between 0% and 50%, and click Crop Image. 0% keeps sharp square corners, the default 20% gives gently rounded corners, and 50% makes the corners meet in a full circle.
No. The crop runs on an HTML canvas inside your browser and the PNG is created on your device. Your image is never sent to a server.
Circle Crop relies on the browser to open the image, and most browsers other than Safari cannot display HEIC files from an iPhone. Convert the photo to JPG first, then crop it.
Yes. The circular PNG works as a profile picture or avatar anywhere that accepts PNG uploads. Many platforms apply their own circular mask to a square upload, in which case the transparent corners simply stay hidden.
Yes. The tool runs in mobile browsers as well as on desktop. Tap the upload area to pick a photo, choose a shape, tap Crop Image, then tap Download.
Reviewed by Raja Jahangir · Last reviewed: October 2, 2026
How do you crop an image into a circle?
To crop an image into a circle, upload the photo and click Crop Image. A square is taken from the centre of the image, using its shorter side, and clipped to a circle with a transparent background. The result downloads as a PNG, which keeps the transparency, and cropping runs entirely in the browser.
How do you make a rounded square profile picture?
Choose Rounded Square instead of Circle and set the corner radius anywhere from 0% to 50%. At 50% the corners meet and the shape becomes a full circle; around 20% gives the soft-cornered look used by many app icons. The crop is still centred and square, and the download is a transparent PNG.