The PNG is in Files. Photos is a recode of the same square.

A chat bubble is a JPEG. Files is a PNG. Those two objects look the same on a phone and they are not the same job. This page is only about where the square lives after Safari on iPhone. Contrast, logo coverage and quiet zone stay on troubleshooting. The generator stays on the homepage.

People tap Download PNG, glance at Recents, and send “the QR” to a print shop. Recents is the camera stack. The shop prints a photo. The photo is a recode. The recode has softer edges. A camera across a café counter fails. Mark did not fail. The bucket did.

Safari already told you Download may not download

Safari on iOS often ignores the HTML download attribute. That sentence already lives on troubleshooting. Repeat it once so this page is honest, then leave it. The rest of this page is the split troubleshooting does not make: Files versus Photos versus Recents versus a Lock Screen screenshot versus a print shop that asked you to “just text the picture”.

Files is the directory that can hold Mark’s bytes

Files is where a real PNG can sit with the name Mark wrote, usually something like mark-qr.png. You open the Files app, you see a file, you can AirDrop that file, you can attach it as a document, you can drop it into a print portal that accepts PNG. The bytes are the canvas Mark encoded in this tab. Scanning that file on the same phone should reproduce the payload. If it does not, the matrix is wrong and you go to troubleshooting: contrast, logo, capacity. Do not debug Safari’s share sheet until the Files object itself scans.

Photos is a camera roll, not a lossless archive

Share → Save Image lands here. The square now lives next to selfies. iOS may keep a PNG. iOS may recode to HEIC or JPEG depending on Settings → Camera → Formats and how the share sheet classified the image. You cannot see that recode by squinting at the thumbnail. You see it when a shop’s RIP or a cheap Android camera stops reading the modules. Photos also loves to crop, enhance, and apply Photographic Styles. None of those operations are Mark. None of them preserve finder patterns on purpose.

Recents is a view, not a folder you own

It mixes screenshots, Save Image recodes, AirDropped pictures, and the occasional actual download. Tapping the first square that “looks like a QR” is how people attach the wrong object. If you need the Mark file, open Files and look for the stem. If you cannot find it, Share from the generator again and pick Save to Files, not Save Image.

Lock Screen is a scene, not a fourth URL

You can set a QR as wallpaper. You can screenshot the Lock Screen and send that screenshot. The screenshot includes system UI, clock, widgets, rounded corners, and a scale that is no longer 512 or 1024 CSS pixels. A camera pointed at a phone on a table is scanning a photograph of a photograph. Test that photograph before you treat a badge as solved. Prefer handing someone the PNG, or letting them scan the live screen of the generator, over a Lock Screen crop. There is no /lock-screen article on this origin. One scene, this page.

Print shops speak files, even when the form says “photo”

Many shop forms still say “upload a photo”. If you upload from Photos, you uploaded the recode. If the shop prints on kraft, gloss, or a coloured patch, that is a paper problem and it belongs on print. If the shop printed a blurry JPEG of a sharp PNG, that is this page. AirDrop the Files object. Or mail the Files object as an attachment named .png. Do not iMessage the Photos square and call it the artwork.

Share sheet buttons lie by being friendly

Save Image is the Photos path. Save to Files is the Files path. Copy may put a bitmap on the clipboard that another app recodes. Markup annotates and flattens. Share into WhatsApp from Photos is a photo send — that pipe is the WhatsApp page, not here. Share into Mail from Files is an attachment. Share into Mail from Photos is often an inline image the other client recodes again. Email as a payload type on the homepage is mailto:, not a mailbox. There is no /email article. One rule: if the next person must scan a printed object, start from Files.

HEIC is a logo limit, not a download-location problem

HEIC logos from Camera Roll are refused on the generator. Convert the logo first. That is one sentence, not a chapter. This origin is not a HEIC converter. Sibling tools are not this header.

What Mark does before you open Files

It encodes the payload with the qrcode library in this tab, draws modules on Canvas, optionally overlays a logo in the centre with error correction forced to H, and hands you a PNG blob or an SVG string. Nothing is posted. Closing the tab drops the string. The PNG on disk is yours. Scanning it does not notify us. There is no scan counter because a counter would need a redirect we do not run. If you needed a dynamic code you can edit after printing, you need a different product with a server. Static is the point. Buttons and fields: how to. WiFi string: WiFi.

The ceiling

Mark cannot patch Safari’s download attribute. Mark cannot freeze Photos from recoding. Mark cannot make a Lock Screen screenshot into a vector. Mark cannot sit inside a print RIP. Success is: a file you opened in Files, scanned with Camera on this iPhone, then handed on as that file. If you still pick Recents and send a photo, you sent a photo.

Steps

1. Encode on the homepage. Short URL, or WIFI, or vCard. High contrast, quiet zone 4 or 8, size 512 or 1024. Logo only if you will test. Download PNG. SVG if there is no logo and you will print.
2. When Safari offers Share, pick Save to Files. iCloud Drive or On My iPhone — either is a file. Do not pick Save Image unless you only need a preview on the roll.
3. Open the Files app. Find mark-qr-*.png. Open it. Use Camera and scan that image on the same phone. If Camera fails on the file, stop. Do not print. Go to troubleshooting.
4. If Camera succeeds on the file, that is the object you AirDrop, attach, or upload to the shop. Name it so the shop does not rename it to IMG_3490.jpg.
5. If you must put a code on the Lock Screen, treat the Lock Screen as a display, not as a master. Keep the PNG in Files as the master. Re-scan a photograph of the Lock Screen before you issue badges.

What looks like a bug and is not

• Safari did not show a Downloads list like desktop Chrome. That is Safari. Use Files.
• The square in Photos looks sharper on the phone than the print. Photos is a display recode at phone PPI. The print is a shop JPEG on paper. Start from Files.
• AirDrop sent a photo the Mac Preview calls JPEG. You AirDropped from Photos. AirDrop from Files.
• Clipboard paste into Keynote is soft. Clipboard is a bitmap path. Place the PNG file, or the SVG.
• A screenshot of the generator tab includes browser chrome and is a new JPEG. Cropping it in Photos crops the quiet zone. Download the PNG.
• iOS Photos “Clean Up” or enhance on a QR is vandalism of finder patterns. Do not keep the master in Photos.
• Work profile or managed Files may hide On My iPhone. Save to a location you can open. Mark does not know MDM.
• Add to Home Screen does not give Safari a new download manager. It is a bookmark.

Honesty limits

We write about what this origin does. We do not copy Apple’s Files user guide. We do not promise that every iOS version keeps PNG in Photos. We do not promise a print shop will refuse to recode a PNG you uploaded through a “photo” field. We do not decode HEIC. We do not run a short link. We do not count scans. If the payload is a trap, the scanner will still open it. Test with the same class of phone you expect visitors to use, in the lighting you expect, at the size you will print.

If the next hop is a chat, stop using this page as the chat manual. WhatsApp recodes a photo send — WhatsApp. Android Camera is not Lens — Android. Print stock is not Files — print. Each of those is a different URL on this origin, on purpose, because duplicate pages are how thin tool sites fail review.