FaceApp: Face Editor

About FaceApp: Face Editor

I picked up FaceApp about a year ago for a work project—needed to quickly age some profile photos for a presentation on generational branding. The AI trick worked like magic that first week, no joke. I aged myself, smoothed out some wrinkles, and even swapped my face onto a colleague just for laughs. But here’s the thing: after the novelty wore off, what’s left is a pretty aggressive money grab. The filters are fun, yes, but they gate everything good behind a paywall. I’m not saying they shouldn’t make money, but the constant “upgrade now” popups get old fast. Last Tuesday I just wanted to brighten a photo and got hit with a full-screen ad for their premium plan. Annoying.

Core Features

The AI editor is genuinely impressive when it works. You can change age, gender, add a smile, swap hair colors—all that stuff that made the internet lose its mind a few years ago. I’ve used the “Old” filter on a few friends and it’s scary accurate. But the free tier gives you maybe 10-15 edits before they start throttling you. The collage maker is basic, not worth it. The face swap works better than I expected—I put my face on a movie poster and it looked real enough to fool my mom. But the editing tools like crop and brightness? My phone’s gallery app does that better. And the interface is cluttered. I had to hunt for five minutes to find the undo button once. Not user-friendly for someone like me who wants in and out in two minutes.

Real-World Use

I mainly use it for quick profile picture touch-ups before client calls. Wednesday I had a video meeting and looked tired, so I ran my selfie through the “makeup” filter to smooth things out. Worked fine—took maybe 30 seconds. But then I tried to save it without the watermark and guess what? Paywall. The watermark is huge and ugly, so you either pay or deal with a crappy image. I also tried the gender swap filter for a team-building thing—got some laughs but the results were uncanny valley weird. For serious work, I’d rather use something like Photoshop. This is more of a party trick app that wants to be a professional tool but isn’t.

Pricing & Value

Here’s where I get frustrated. The free version is basically a demo. You get a handful of filters, then every cool effect costs you a “trial” or an upgrade. Premium is like $5 a month or $25 a year—not insane, but I hate subscription apps for something I might touch three times. I’m not paying monthly for an app that sits in my folder collecting dust. If they offered a one-time purchase for $10, I’d consider it. But the subscription model feels greedy, especially when you see ads inside the paid version too. My colleague Sarah paid for a year and still got prompted to “unlock more” every time she opened it. That’s a joke.

Updates & Support

I emailed support once because the app crashed mid-edit and lost my photo. They replied three days later (already moved on) with a generic “try reinstalling” message. No apology, no fix. The app itself updates every few weeks but often with more subscription prompts than actual improvements. I noticed they added a “deepfake” video feature last update—tried it, got a watermark, and a prompt to pay $12 a month for removal. Not interested. Also, the app drains battery on my OnePlus 11 when processing AI edits—phone gets hot after three uses. Support didn’t even acknowledge that when I asked. So yeah, if you expect help, you’re on your own.

Data & Privacy

This bothered me enough to delete the app for a while. FaceApp got in trouble a few years back for uploading photos without clear consent. They say they don’t store your images anymore, but my trust is low. The privacy policy is a wall of text about data processing in the US and Russia—I’m not a lawyer, but that’s a red flag. I only use it with non-sensitive photos now (no family, no work documents). For a busy professional, I don’t have time to read 50 pages of legalese. If you care about privacy, skip this one or at least don’t upload anything you wouldn’t share publicly.