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How to Blur Faces in a Screen Recording (Webcam vs. On-Page Faces)

There are two kinds of faces in a screen recording: camera faces (use camera-off or a video editor's face-tracking) and faces on the page you're sharing — avatars, profile photos, participant tiles. BlurFirst blurs the in-page faces; it doesn't do camera face-tracking.

By the BlurFirst team8 min read

It depends on where the face is. A face coming from a webcam or camera tile is video — you blur it with a video editor's face-tracking, or simply turn the camera off in your conferencing tool. But faces that appear on the page you're sharing — profile photos in a CRM, avatars in Slack or LinkedIn, participant thumbnails in a browser-based call — are just images in the web page, and the easiest way to hide those is to blur them in the page before you record. BlurFirst handles the in-page faces; it does not do camera face-tracking.

That split matters, because reaching for the wrong tool wastes time and leaves faces exposed. Here's how to tell the two apart and how to blur the ones that live inside the browser.

Two kinds of faces, two different tools

Almost every "how do I blur a face" question is really one of these five situations. Only the middle three are things an in-page blur can touch:

Where the face appearsExampleHow to hide itBlurFirst?
Your webcam / camera tileYour face, or a guest's, in the conferencing camera feedTurn the camera off, or use a video editor's face-tracking on the recordingNo — cameras aren't in the page
Profile photos & avatars in an appContact headshots in Salesforce or HubSpot, Slack avatars, LinkedIn photosBlur the image element in the page before recordingYes
Participant thumbnails in a browser-based callThe tiles in Google Meet or Teams running inside a browser tabRegion-blur the tile strip before you record the tabYes (when the call is in a browser tab)
Faces inside a photo or PDF on screenAn ID photo, a team page, a screenshot you're viewing in the browserElement or box blur over each faceYes
A recorded camera face in existing footageA talking-head clip you already exportedVideo editor with face-tracking or mosaicNo — that's post-production
Where the face appears determines how you hide it.

Blurring faces that are on the page you're sharing

When the faces you're worried about are avatars, profile photos or participant tiles rendered inside a browser tab, blur them in the page before you record. One honest note first: BlurFirst's Scan feature detects PII *text* patterns — emails, phone numbers, card numbers, SSNs and API keys — not faces. So face and avatar blurring is done manually with the click-an-element or drag-a-box gestures. It's quick, and the result is captured as real pixels.

  1. 1

    Install and pin the extension

    Add BlurFirst from the Chrome Web Store (also Edge, Brave, Vivaldi, Opera) and pin it.

  2. 2

    Start blurring on the page

    Open the CRM, inbox, LinkedIn page or browser-based call you'll record and press Ctrl/⌘ ⇧ Y.

  3. 3

    Blur each face or avatar

    Click a profile photo or avatar to blur just that element — click again to reveal it. For a row of participant tiles, drag a box over the whole strip; the region stays anchored as you scroll.

  4. 4

    Save a per-site profile (Pro)

    Save the blurs so avatars stay hidden the next time you visit — useful for a CRM or team directory you record often. The saved blur stores only a CSS selector, so it survives the app's single-page re-renders.

  5. 5

    Record as normal

    Start Loom, OBS or your conferencing recorder. The faces are captured already blurred. Keep Ctrl/⌘ ⇧ H handy to blur the entire page if a new face pops in.

The honest boundary: BlurFirst only affects content inside a browser tab. It can't blur a webcam feed, a native desktop app, or another window — and it doesn't auto-detect faces the way it auto-detects PII text. For camera faces, use camera-off or a video editor; for faces on the page, blur them yourself before you record.

Frequently asked questions

Can BlurFirst blur my webcam face?

No. A browser extension can only affect content inside a web page, and your camera feed isn't part of the page. To hide a webcam face, turn the camera off in your conferencing tool, or use a video editor's face-tracking on the finished recording.

How do I blur someone's profile photo before a demo or recording?

Open the page, start BlurFirst, and click the profile photo to blur just that element. Click it again to reveal it. The blur is painted into the page as real pixels, so it holds up in the recording and in screenshots of the shared feed.

Does it detect faces automatically?

No. BlurFirst's Scan detects PII text patterns — emails, phone numbers, card numbers, SSNs and API keys — not faces. Faces and avatars are blurred manually by clicking the element or dragging a box over the region, which takes only a few seconds.

How do I blur the faces of participants in a call recording?

If the call runs inside a browser tab (a browser-based Meet or Teams session), region-blur the participant tiles before you record the tab. If you're recording the Zoom or Teams desktop app, that isn't a web page, so use camera-off for participants or a video editor afterwards.

Will the blur stay on an avatar if the page updates?

Yes. Because a saved blur stores a CSS selector rather than the image itself, it re-applies after single-page-app re-renders, and a saved per-site profile can auto-apply the blur when the page loads.

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