Make a jigsaw puzzle from a photo, online and free

Any picture on your computer or phone can become a jigsaw: the holiday photo, the wedding group shot, the dog, a screenshot of the game you played together in 2009. Pieceware is a custom jigsaw puzzle maker that skips the printing: upload the photo, pick a piece count and shape, and you have an online puzzle in a few seconds. It is multiplayer from the start, so you can send the link to whoever should help, or keep it to yourself. No account, no watermark, no ads, nothing to download and nothing to buy.

How to make a jigsaw from your photo

1. Open the New Puzzle window on the home page and press Choose a file… under Upload your own, or drag the photo onto that box, or paste it. JPEG, PNG, WebP, GIF and AVIF up to 20 MB all work.
2. Wait a moment while it uploads. The server turns it into a JPEG of at most 1600 pixels on the long side; phone photos are turned the right way up, and the original file's metadata is not kept.
3. On the Options tab pick a size from 24 to 1500 pieces, a shape and whether pieces rotate.
4. Type a nickname and press Create lobby. Your puzzle opens, cut and scattered.
5. Press Share and send the link to anyone who should join. Everyone who opens it plays on your photo at the same time, with live cursors, up to 50 people.

What happens to your photo

This is exactly what the server does, no more:

• The resized JPEG and its thumbnail are stored on our server under a random 12-character id. They are not listed anywhere.
• They are served to anyone who requests that address, which in practice means the people you gave the room link to.
• New uploads are normally also posted to a private Discord channel that the person running the site reads, so abusive images can be spotted and removed.
• A room is deleted after 12 hours with nobody in it, and its photo is deleted at the same moment.
• An upload that never ends up in a room (you uploaded and then closed the tab) is deleted after 24 hours.
• The original file you uploaded is never stored; only the resized copy exists.

So the lifetime of a photo here is "as long as someone is still playing it, plus 12 hours". If you want to keep a puzzle going for a week, someone has to open it at least every 12 hours. The privacy page covers the rest of the site in the same spirit.

Which photos make good puzzles

• Detail everywhere. A market street, a crowded table, a garden. Big flat areas (sky, white walls, studio backgrounds) are the slow part of any jigsaw.
• Sharp and well lit. The image is downsized to 1600 pixels, so a blurry snapshot stays blurry; that is fine at 100 pieces and painful at 1000.
• Landscape or square. Tall portrait photos work, but the board is easier to keep on screen when it is wider than it is high.
• Group photos are a favourite: everyone in the call gets to assemble their own face. 300 pieces for a small group; 500 to 750 if the photo is busy.

Ideas

• A wedding or birthday photo as a surprise puzzle for the people in it.
• A shared holiday: each evening a different photo from that day.
• Remote teams: the office, the product, the founding-day photo. See virtual team building.
• Kids' drawings at 24 or 48 pieces, solved together with a grandparent on a video call.

Questions

Can I make a jigsaw puzzle from my own photo for free?

Yes. Uploading, every size from 24 to 1500 pieces, the three piece shapes and rotation are all free, with no account, no watermark and no adverts. Nothing is printed or posted: the puzzle is played in the browser.

Can other people play my custom puzzle with me?

Yes, that is the point. Your photo becomes a normal multiplayer room: send the link and up to 50 people can work on it at once, each seeing the others' cursors. Nobody needs an account. Playing it alone works just as well.

Does it work from a phone?

Yes. Pick a picture from the camera roll with the upload button; a large phone photo is shrunk in the browser before it is sent, so the upload is quick even on mobile data. On a computer you can also drag a file onto the box or paste an image.

Which files can I upload?

JPEG, PNG, WebP, GIF and AVIF, up to 20 MB. The long side must be at least 300 pixels. Animated files use their first frame.

Does the upload keep my location data?

No. The photo is re-encoded as a plain JPEG on the server, which drops the original file's metadata (EXIF, including GPS). Its orientation tag is applied first so sideways phone photos come out the right way up.

How many pieces can my photo have?

One of nine sizes: 24, 48, 100, 200, 300, 500, 750, 1000, 1500. Uploads are resized to at most 1600 pixels on the long side, so at 1000 pieces and above use a sharp, detailed photo.

Who can see my photo?

Everyone who has the room link, since they are playing it. The image is served from an unguessable address and is not listed anywhere on the site. New uploads are normally also shown to the person who runs the site, in a private Discord channel, so anything abusive can be removed. It is not a photo hosting service: once the room is gone, so is the file on our server.

Is there a limit on uploads?

Yes, a light one: 10 uploads and 30 new rooms per hour per network address, to keep the server free for everyone.