After announcing that the custom background would be coming to Google Meet in early June, finally Google added support for virtual backgrounds before the end of the year. The feature had a long term and users connected to the Google ecosystem were missing this feature a lot. As we noted in our Google Meet and Zoom comparison, Google Meet lags far behind Zoom in terms of feature set. Fortunately, the gap is slowly closing. The custom background feature is available to both free and paid users. So, if you’re interested, follow our guide and learn how to use custom backgrounds in Google Meet.
Use Custom Backgrounds in Google Meet
Before we move on to the steps, make sure that your custom background in Google Meet currently only available on the web. Google stated that the feature will come to Android and iOS apps in the future. Other than that, note that the custom backgrounds feature is not available to organizations that choose the G Suite for Education plan. Other than that, let’s review the instructions.
1. The process of using a custom background in Google Meet is quite simple. While making a video call, click the 3-dot menu in the lower right corner and click “change background“.
2. Here you can choose any virtual background you want. You have the option to blur the background with . various pre-loaded images from cafes to libraries, beaches and more.
3. If you want to upload your own custom background in Google Meet then simply Click the “+” button and select an image from your computer. This much. Note that as of now it does not support dynamic videos as custom backgrounds. In addition, the image must be in JPG format and must not exceed the 16MB size limit.
Apply Custom Backgrounds in Google Meet
This is how you can apply custom backgrounds in Google Meet. In my experience, face detection and background separation in Google Meet weren’t as good as Zoom. However, the blurred background worked quite well without any face cropping issues. Anyway, that’s it for us. If you want to learn how to change backgrounds in Microsoft Teams, then follow our linked guide.
