Video conferencing has become the norm since everyone started working from home and Zoom and Google Meet are the two most used platforms for making video calls. The ability to add custom wallpapers in Zoom once set them apart, but that's no longer the case, as Google recently introduced the option to change the wallpaper in a Google Meet call. In fact, you can even blur the background. Here's how you can change or blur the background in Google Meet.
Before starting
Before you start changing your wallpaper in Google Meet, below are some requirements or things you should keep in mind to get the most out of this new feature.
- You can change the background or blur it on Windows, Mac, Linux and Chrome OS platforms. The steps mentioned below will work on all of these platforms.
- The camera will turn on automatically when you select a call wallpaper.
- Without logging into a Google account, users can only change their wallpaper once.
- If a user joins a Google Workspace for Education video call, he; background images cannot be selected.
- Changing the wallpaper may slow down your device, so you need to enable hardware acceleration on the Google Chrome browser for Windows / Mac by going to “Settings -> Advanced -> System -> Use hardware acceleration”.
How to change the wallpaper in Google Meet call
- Go to the Google Meet desktop site. You will be shown a preview of your video.
- Click on the three-dot icon located at the bottom right of the screen.
- From the list of options displayed, select; the “Change background” option.
- After clicking on the "Change Background" option, you will be shown two options to choose from: "softly blur" and "full blur" of the background. These can be applied to the existing background.
- Next to or below the blur options, there is a "+" button. Click on it to add a wallpaper from your computer.
Alternatively, you can select from the preloaded list of wallpapers. There are a total of 27 preloaded wallpapers to choose from.
- Tap any wallpaper and it will automatically apply to your Google Meet video call.
- Note that you can also change the wallpaper during a Google Meet call. Follow the same steps mentioned above.
- If you want to remove the custom wallpaper from the screen, press the “Disable wallpapers” button.
