Blur Intercom During Screen Sharing: Hide Conversations and User Data

To hide conversations and user data in Intercom while screen sharing, use a browser extension like BlurFirst to blur the contact names and emails in the inbox list, the conversation content, and the user attributes panel before you present. Because the blur is drawn as real pixels in the tab, it survives Zoom, Google Meet, Teams and Loom — and because the Intercom inbox updates live as new messages arrive, a saved profile plus the Panic hotkey keep you covered when a fresh conversation pops in mid-call.

The three PII-heavy zones of the Intercom inbox

The Intercom Inbox is a three-pane layout, and each pane leaks something different. Any one of them can identify a customer, so plan to cover all three before you go live:

• The conversation list (left) — every open conversation shows the contact's name or email plus a preview line of their latest message.
• The conversation view (center) — the full message thread, including anything a customer typed: order numbers, addresses, account details, complaints.
• The user or lead attributes panel (right) — name, email, company, plan, location, last seen, and custom attributes that often include revenue or account tier.
• Phone numbers — in the contact details and frequently pasted into the conversation itself.
• Teammate names — assignee avatars, at-mentions inside notes, and the teammate list all identify your colleagues.

The inbox updates live — cover the containers, keep Panic close

Intercom is real-time. New conversations slide into the top of the list, unread counts change, and a customer can reply in the middle of your demo. A blur pinned to one row is wrong the instant the list reorders. BlurFirst saves a CSS selector for the list column and the attributes panel, so anything that renders inside them — including a brand-new conversation — is blurred automatically. Draw a box over the whole conversation-list column rather than individual rows, and keep the panic hotkey Ctrl/⌘ ⇧ H under your fingers so a single keystroke blurs the entire tab if something unexpected arrives.

1. 1

   Install and open the Inbox

   Add BlurFirst, open your Intercom Inbox, and press Ctrl/⌘ ⇧ Y to start.

2. 2

   Blur the conversation list

   Box-blur the left column so every contact name, email and message preview is hidden — including conversations that arrive later.

3. 3

   Cover the attributes panel

   Box-blur the right-hand user panel to hide company, plan, location, phone and custom attributes in one stroke.

4. 4

   Hide the open thread

   Box-blur the center conversation pane, then use element blur to reveal only the message you actually want to discuss.

5. 5

   Save an Intercom profile

   Save the layout so it auto-applies on load and re-attaches as the inbox updates in real time.

6. 6

   Keep Panic ready for new messages

   If a new conversation pushes in with a real name, press Ctrl/⌘ ⇧ H to blur the whole page instantly, then reveal what you meant to show.

The Pro Scan gesture can also sweep the visible conversation for emails, phone numbers, credit-card numbers and API keys and blur them locally in one click. Scan matches patterns, not names, so combine it with a box over the contact list for the names no pattern can catch. All of this runs on your machine — nothing you blur leaves the browser, the content script is sandboxed in an isolated world with namespaced CSS, and the only network request is a license check, so the inbox keeps updating normally underneath the blur.

The honest limit: BlurFirst covers the browser tab only. It will not hide a separate Slack window, a softphone, or OS notifications, and it cannot run on chrome:// pages or the Chrome Web Store. Use it alongside your usual do-not-disturb and window-management habits, not as a replacement for them.