Is there any app that can see through objects?

No. Seeing through something requires radiation that passes through it and a detector on the other side. A phone camera has neither, and no software can invent information the sensor never received.

What about apps that say they use AI?

A model can guess what might be behind something and draw it. That is a generated picture, not an image of your subject, and it has no relationship to what is actually there.

So what is the x-ray effect for?

Photos, video and fun. It is a colour and contrast treatment with a recognisable look, and we describe it that way in the app and on the App Store.

FX looks

Is there a real x-ray app? No — here is what they are

X-ray apps are one of the oldest jokes on the App Store, and one of the most misunderstood. The physics here is not close, it is not even in the same building.

Download on the App Store Free to download · iOS 17 or later

Thermal Camera running with the HUD switched on

Why a phone cannot take an x-ray

An x-ray image needs a source of x-rays on one side of the subject and a detector on the other. The source is a vacuum tube accelerating electrons into a metal target at tens of thousands of volts. It is ionising radiation, it is regulated, and it is not something any consumer device emits.

A phone has a camera. A camera collects light that bounces off surfaces. It cannot record what is behind a surface any more than a photograph can, because the information never reaches it.

This also settles the search that always sits next to this one: no app can see through clothing. Not with a camera, not with a filter, not with any amount of processing. Apps claiming it either do nothing or are a prank that pastes a stock image over the picture, and several have been pulled from the store for exactly that.

The x-ray look, honestly labelled

The X-RAY effect in Thermal Camera is one of seven FX treatments: it inverts the picture and pushes it to a cold, bone-white and blue grade that reads like a radiograph. It is a photographic look, applied live, and it does not reveal anything that was not in front of the lens.

Live on camera

Rendered as you move, not pasted on afterwards.

Adjustable

The intensity slider takes it from a cold grade to full inversion.

Six more FX looks

Glitch, scanline, pixel, neon, comic and crystal.

Nothing leaves the device

Every frame is processed on your phone and discarded.

Download on the App Store

Questions about the app

Is there any app that can see through objects?: No. Seeing through something requires radiation that passes through it and a detector on the other side. A phone camera has neither, and no software can invent information the sensor never received.
What about apps that say they use AI?: A model can guess what might be behind something and draw it. That is a generated picture, not an image of your subject, and it has no relationship to what is actually there.
So what is the x-ray effect for?: Photos, video and fun. It is a colour and contrast treatment with a recognisable look, and we describe it that way in the app and on the App Store.