Steganography
Hide files and messages inside images — LSB pixel embedding or metadata channels — with optional AES-256-CBC encryption. Decode, detect and analyse carriers that arrive from elsewhere.
Steganography detailsComing soon to the Microsoft Store · Windows 10 & 11
See what your images are really hiding.
StegoPixel is a Windows desktop toolkit for image steganography, metadata inspection & cleanup, AI-image and provenance detection, and forensic analysis — with a visual workflow builder for batch automation. Everything runs on your machine. Nothing leaves it.
payload 4.2 KB · AES-256-CBC · found
45workflow node types
54ready-made presets
7modules, one shared image
0bytes uploaded, ever
What it does
One toolkit for every angle of an image
From hiding a secret inside pixels to proving a photo was machine-generated — StegoPixel covers the whole lifecycle in a single offline desktop app.
Metadata workbench
Inspect and edit EXIF, XMP and IPTC tags, apply reusable templates, validate values, and drop to a raw hex view when you need certainty. Batch work runs through the workflow builder.
Metadata detailsPrivacy cleanup
Strip GPS coordinates, camera details and personal fields before you share. Ready-made profiles such as “safe for social media”, with a backup taken first.
Cleanup detailsForensic analysis
Error Level Analysis, noise and residual maps, level sweeps, luminance gradients, PCA and block-similarity scans for copy-move detection — all exportable to HTML or PDF.
Forensics detailsAI & provenance detection
Heuristic synthetic-image detection with tiered verdicts: generator signatures, metadata plausibility and stripped-metadata checks, pixel statistics, a carrier-signature scan, a Stable Diffusion watermark decode and C2PA provenance reading — computed on your machine, not in a cloud.
Detection detailsWorkflow automation
Chain 45 node types — read, write, scrub, rename, resize, convert, analyse, detect, sign, report — into repeatable batch pipelines, starting from 54 built-in presets.
Workflow detailsModules
Seven modules, one shared image
Load an image once and move between tools without losing context — every module works on the same file, and every result stays available to the others.
Home
Recent files and folders, library statistics, quick help, and a one-click “What’s Hidden?” scan that runs the AI, stego, C2PA and metadata checks together.
Metadata
Full EXIF / XMP / IPTC inspector and editor with tag grouping, templates, validation, 20-step undo and raw hex inspection.
Workflows
A visual batch builder: input folders → processing steps → analysis → reports, archives and hash manifests.
Privacy
One-click scrubbing of GPS and personal data, per-profile cleanup rules, and a backup taken before anything is modified.
Steganography
Encode and decode hidden payloads through pixel LSB or metadata channels, with optional encryption and error-correction.
Forensics
ELA, noise, gradient, PCA, geo-tag, watermark, block-similarity and AI analysis in one workspace, with exportable evidence reports.
Hex Viewer
Byte-level inspection of the file itself — with structure parsing — to find stego artefacts and tampering that a preview will never show.
Settings
Theme, language, hashing algorithms, cleanup profiles, steganography defaults, workflow retention and database maintenance.
Batch automation
Boring, repetitive image work — automated
Build a pipeline once, run it forever. Nodes execute in order and pass their results downstream, so a resize or a format conversion automatically feeds the next step.
Input Folder
Read Metadata
Remove GPS
Rename {n:000}
Convert to PNG
Output Report
- 45 node types — inputs, metadata, file operations, image processing, privacy, analysis, AI detection, steganography, signing and outputs.
- Self-updating file lists — processing nodes replace the working set, so later steps always see the latest output.
- 54 built-in presets across eight categories, from “What’s Hidden?” to “Archive Hidden in Image”.
- Real reports — HTML and PDF forensic reports, JSON metadata exports and hash manifests.
- Pause, resume, cancel — long batches are interruptible, and every run is recorded in execution history.
- Guided wizard — a step-by-step builder for anyone who would rather answer questions than wire nodes.
Two sides of the same coin
Hide it. Find it. Prove it.
StegoPixel is built for both sides of the problem — creating hidden channels, and uncovering the ones somebody else created.
Encode
Writing secrets
- Pixel-level LSB embedding marked with the
STEGmagic header - Metadata-channel embedding marked with the
STGMmagic header - AES-256-CBC encryption with PBKDF2 (SHA-256, 100,000 iterations) key derivation
- Configurable bit depth and RGB channel selection
- Carry any file type — text, images, documents, archives
- Capacity reported per format up front, so nothing is silently dropped
Decode
Finding secrets
- Error Level Analysis heatmaps for compression and tamper evidence
- Noise-consistency, residual and SNR analysis, plus noise-rainbow rendering
- Level sweep, luminance gradient and PCA fingerprints
- Block-similarity engine for duplicate and copy-move detection
- Geo-tag presence audits with map links in the report
- Image signing with RSA or ECDSA keys, and signature checks
Local-first by design
Your images never leave your machine
StegoPixel is built to be trusted with sensitive material — that is the entire point of the product, so the architecture had to match.
Fully offline
Analysis, detection, hashing and steganography all run locally. There is no account, no sync and no telemetry — the code contains no HTTP client at all.
Local storage
Your library index, workflow history, templates and settings live in an embedded SQLite database under your own user profile.
Real cryptography
Hidden payloads can be protected with AES-256-CBC and a key derived through PBKDF2 — the same primitives used by mainstream password managers.
Reversible by default
Destructive operations default to writing a copy, and deletions go to the Recycle Bin unless you explicitly ask for a permanent delete.
Availability
Built for Windows, coming to the Microsoft Store
StegoPixel is in pre-release. It will be distributed as a packaged app through the Microsoft Store, so installation and updates are handled by Windows itself.
- Windows 10 (1809) and later, including Windows 11 — on both x64 and Arm64 devices.
- Self-contained install — the .NET runtime is bundled, so there is nothing extra to download first.
- Store-managed updates — Windows keeps the app current; no separate updater process.
- Clean uninstall — appears in Settings → Apps like any other trusted application.
- 12 interface languages, switchable at runtime without restarting the app.
- Product
- StegoPixel
- Release status
- Pre-release (not yet published)
- Distribution
- Microsoft Store
- Platform
- Windows.Desktop
- Minimum version
- 10.0.17763 (1809)
- Architecture
- x64 · arm64
- Runtime
- .NET 9 (bundled)
- UI framework
- Avalonia 12
- Database
- SQLite (local)
FAQ
Questions people ask first
When can I get it?
StegoPixel is finished enough to package and is heading for the Microsoft Store, but it has not been published yet. The download page will carry the Store link the moment it goes live.
Is my data uploaded anywhere?
No. The application contains no HTTP client and no telemetry. Image analysis, detection, hashing and steganography all run on your machine. The only outbound links in the whole product are optional OpenStreetMap and Google Maps URLs written into geo-tag reports, which open in your browser only when you click them.
Can it really detect AI-generated images?
It runs offline heuristic analysis and reports a tiered verdict — Natural, Inconclusive or AI-generated — alongside generator signatures, metadata plausibility and stripped-metadata checks, pixel statistics, a carrier scan, a Stable Diffusion watermark decode and C2PA provenance reading. When a check cannot run, the verdict says so instead of passing off “not checked” as clean. There is no cloud model and no training data here: these are hand-written statistical signals. Treat the output as evidence, not proof — no offline detector is infallible, and the app is designed to say “Inconclusive” rather than guess.
Which image formats are supported?
JPEG, PNG, TIFF, WebP, GIF and BMP are decoded end-to-end. Some capabilities are format-dependent — for example custom metadata channels need XMP support, so they apply to JPEG, PNG, TIFF and WebP, while EXIF cannot be written to GIF or BMP at all.
StegoPixel is on its way to the Microsoft Store
Local-first image steganography, metadata forensics and privacy cleanup — installed and updated by Windows, with nothing sent to a server.
Pre-release · Windows 10 & 11 · x64 and Arm64