QR code on phone or webpage.

Factual Questions
1

Google has not been my friend on this. I need to access a QR code, but I can’t scan it. The reason I can’t scan it is it’s ON MY PHONE and my camera can’t scan my own screen. Is there a way to read a QR code that exists as an image on my Android device?

2

Take a screenshot of the QR code on your phone.

Email the picture to yourself.

Pull the email up on a computer and use your phone to scan it.

3

The situations I’ve seen, if the QR code is being displayed in a website, the image of the code itself is a clickable hyperlink, taking you to the URL encoded in the code.

None of this applies if this necessary precondition isn’t in place, however, and you may be stuck with Whack-a-Mole’s somewhat roundabout workaround.

4

Not an option when the only device I have access to at the time is my phone.

5

Have someone near you use their phone to scan it off your phone and see where it goes.

6

Not an option in this case, either. Also, and I hope this doesn’t come across as snippier than intend, it doesn’t answer the question. I can accept (but not like) that the answer may well be “no”.

7

You can take a screenshot of the QR code and use the Google Goggles app to load it and read it:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.apps.unveil

8

Thanks! That works perfectly.

9

You bet.

10

What if you held the phone up to a mirror and then scanned the image in the mirror? Do mirror-image QR codes work?

11

Yes, but it shows you a mirror image of the webpage.

12

Can you scan a code with the front camera, which would be the one facing the mirror? I thought you had to scan with the rear camera.

13

I had thought of that, but my scanner app uses the back camera, and even if it didn’t the screen then shows the camera, not the image. But the Google Goggles app works great, although the icons were not exactly intuitive.

14

Right? Google has a tendency to make powerful software hidden behind oversimplified UIs. It’s always a case of “what does this icon mean?”. First you secret-swipe, then you shishkabob, then you hamburger and three-finger pull-down and click the box with the shape inside… :confused: