Using Visual Effects for Google Meet

Visual effects allow you to blur or replace your background during a meeting using Google Meet. If you can't enable visual effects, this article can help fix the problem.

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 
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:

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

1. On the top right of a Chrome window, click Menu , then select Settings.
2. On the left, next to Advanced, Select the down arrow 
3. Select System 
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.