What happened to remove.bg?
The standalone remove.bg website is shutting down. According to remove.bg's own FAQ, the site "will no longer be available from 1 December 2026 at 9:00am CET" and its background removal is moving into Canva, the company that has owned remove.bg since 2021. The only alternative that FAQ offers is Canva's Background Remover — and that is a Canva Pro feature, which means a paid subscription and a Canva account.
If you used remove.bg the way most people did — open the site, drop a photo, download the cutout, done — that simple workflow disappears with the standalone site. This page exists to keep it alive: the same job, still free, with no account at all.
The alternative is already on this page
The tool at the top of this page is CrunchyPic's AI background remover. Drop in a photo and it separates the subject from the background and gives you a transparent PNG — for product photos, profile pictures, thumbnails, listings, and the hundred other jobs remove.bg was used for.
One thing works differently, and it's the whole point: your photo is never uploaded. Most background removers — remove.bg included — process your image on their servers. CrunchyPic downloads a small AI model to your device once (about 40MB, cached afterwards) and does the work right in your browser. Nothing to leak, nothing to store, nothing to sell — and no server queue to wait for.
Honest comparison
| CrunchyPic | remove.bg (standalone) | Canva Background Remover | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | — | Canva Pro (paid) feature |
| Signup | None | — | Canva account required |
| Your photo is uploaded | No — processed on your device | Yes, to their servers | Yes, to Canva |
| Watermark | None | — | — |
| After 1 Dec 2026 | Available | Standalone site closed | Available (Pro) |
We are not claiming the fanciest editor here — if you need a full design suite, that is what Canva is. This page does one job: remove the background, free, privately, in seconds.
How it works
- Drop in your photo — drag and drop, or click to browse. JPG, PNG and WebP all work.
- Click "Remove background" — on your first run the AI model downloads (one time, about 40MB); then the AI cuts out your subject in seconds.
- Compare and download — drag the slider to check the cutout against the original, then download your transparent PNG.
Tip: clear, well-lit photos with a distinct subject give the cleanest edges. Wispy hair, fur, and glass are the hardest cases for any AI — including this one.
Making a Christmas card? Start with the cutout
December is exactly when this matters: the classic remove.bg Christmas job — cut your family photo out, place it on a festive design, send it as a card — loses its home on 1 December, mid-season. The cutout above is step one. Our free walkthrough covers the rest: how to make a Christmas photo card with free tools, including how to get the finished card print-ready.
And if your cutout needs to fit an upload limit afterwards — a print shop, an email, a form — CrunchyPic's exact-KB compressor finishes the job, also without uploading anything.