Using Visual Effects for Google Meet

When joining a meeting with Google Meet on your computer, you can enable visual effects to blur or replace your background. Most modern devices will support this feature.

Enabling Visual Effects

To use visual effects, you must use Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge Version 91 or later on a 64-bit computer (most modern devices support this). Using visual effects does take more computer resources and may cause some devices to work slower.

Before a meeting

  1. Go to Google Meet, then select a meeting
  2. On the bottom right of your self view, select Apply visual effects 
  3. Select your desired effect
  4. Select Join Now.

During a meeting

  1. On the bottom, select More More
  2. Select Apply visual effects 
  3. Select your desired effect

Troubleshooting Visual Effects

You may see an error message when trying to enable visual effects if your browser is not set up correctly:

Screenshot of Google Meet with "Configure your browser for visual effects" error message

You'll need to enable hardware acceleration for visual effects to work:

  1. On the top right of a Chrome window, click Menu More, then select Settings.
  2. On the left, next to Advanced, Select the down arrow Down arrow
  3. Select System Wrench
  4. Turn on Use hardware acceleration when available
  5. Restart Chrome

If this does not work, check if your browser supports WebGL at webglreport.com and verify that “Major Performance Caveat” is marked as “No”. You can’t enforce WebGL on unstable WebGL devices. In some cases, it may help to update graphic card drivers or restart your browser. Learn more about WebGL support.

Need Additional Help?

For more information on visual effects, see Google Support's article.

For additional assistance, please visit the Google Workspace knowledge base for additional articles. You can also contact the IT Help Desk.

Details

Article ID: 1171
Created
Tue 11/8/22 1:16 PM
Modified
Mon 11/14/22 8:55 AM