How to change your background in Google Meet before or during a meeting

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How to change your background in Google Meet before or during a meeting
Google Meet lets you customize your background with your own images or stock imagery.Getty
  • You can change your Google Meet background if you want to hide your surroundings or simply make the meeting more fun.
  • Your background can be changed before you join the meeting or during the meeting by clicking on the icon in the bottom right corner of your self view.
  • Google Meet has a library of backgrounds to choose from, but you can also upload your own image, or blur your camera image background.
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Google Meet has become more popular than ever for everything from corporate meetings to elementary school classes. The option to change your background is a great way to hide your messy bedroom or home office and replace it with a more fun image.

While this is a basic option offered through Google Meet itself, there are some prerequisites to using it:

  • If you're using Google Meet on an iOS device, you must have an iPhone 6s or newer, with iOS 12 or above.
  • If you're using Google Meet on an Android, your device must have Android version P or above, 3 Gb of RAM, at least 4 CPU cores, at least 1.6 GHz CPU clock speed, and ARM64 Architecture.
  • If you're using Google Meet on a Mac, you can only access the "change background" option in Chrome.
  • If you're using Google Meet on Windows, MacOS, or Linux, your Chrome version must be M84 or above.
  • If you're using Google Meet on Chrome OS, your Chrome version must be M86 or above.

If you don't have the option to change your background on Google Meet, check which version of Chrome you're using to see if that's the issue.

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How to change background on Google Meet before joining the meeting

You can change your background before joining the Google Meeting, before anybody can see your actual surroundings.

1. Open Google Meet and sign into your meeting.

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2. In the bottom right corner of your self view, click on the "Change Background" icon. It's the one that looks like a head with lines behind it.

How to change your background in Google Meet before or during a meeting
The icon in the bottom right will allow you to change your background before joining the meeting.Grace Eliza Goodwin/Business Insider

3. In the "Change Background" menu that shows up, a number of background options will appear.

  • To blur your background, select the second or third squares (each containing an icon of a person surrounded by dots).
How to change your background in Google Meet before or during a meeting
The second and third squares will blur your background.Grace Eliza Goodwin/Business Insider
  • To upload your own background image, click the square with a plus "+" icon. This will pull up access to your computer's files. From there, simply find the file you want to load and click on it.
How to change your background in Google Meet before or during a meeting
Click on the plus "+" icon to choose a file from your computer.Grace Eliza Goodwin/Business Insider
  • You can also select an image from Google Meet's library of stock background images - click the square of the image you want to use.
How to change your background in Google Meet before or during a meeting
Click on one of the image squares to set it as your background.Grace Eliza Goodwin/Business Insider
  • After you've selected a background image, you can click the first square (containing a circle with a line through it) to undo any background selections you've made.

4. Whichever icon you click on will automatically change your background.

How to change background on Google Meet after joining the meeting

You can also change the background on Google Meet after joining the meeting by accessing this exact same menu.

1. Click on the three vertical dots in the bottom right corner.

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2. Scroll up to "Change background."

How to change your background in Google Meet before or during a meeting
Click the three dots in the bottom right corner and select "Change background" in the pop-up menu.Grace Eliza Goodwin/Business Insider

3. This will bring up a sidebar menu to change your background during the call.

How to change your background in Google Meet before or during a meeting
You can now change your background from the sidebar menu.Grace Eliza Goodwin/Business Insider

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