Hide Google Messages texts in screen shares and screenshots

Text messages used to stay on your phone. Google Messages for web changed that: pair your Android phone with a browser and your texts appear in a tab on your computer, so you can reply with a keyboard. Google’s help page puts it simply: the web version “shows what’s on your Google Messages mobile app.”

That’s convenient right up until you share your screen. Texts aren’t like chat apps, where most messages come from people you chose to talk to. Your text inbox is where the rest of the world reaches you: your bank, your doctor’s office, delivery companies, two-step sign-in codes, and anyone who has your number.

What a Google Messages screen share gives away

The conversation list is the first thing on screen, and each row shows who the text is from and the start of the latest message. That’s often enough on its own.

Verification codes are the most urgent. Banks, email providers and almost every online account send one-time codes by text, and the code is usually in the preview line of the conversation list. A code that’s visible on a call is visible to everyone watching, and a code on a recorded call can be read long after the meeting. Most codes expire quickly, but you can’t always know who is watching or how quickly they can act.

Bank and card alerts come next. “A purchase of $84.20 was made on your card ending 4821” tells everyone on the call where you bank, part of your card number and how you spend. Appointment reminders say which clinic you go to. Delivery texts can include your address.

Then there are other people’s numbers. Anyone who isn’t saved in your contacts appears as their phone number, and group texts list everyone in them. Those numbers belong to people who never agreed to have them shown on your call.

Google itself treats the web version as sensitive. Its help page advises unpairing when you’re done on a shared or public computer, because unpairing “helps keep other people from seeing your messages and sensitive info.” A screen share shows the same messages to everyone on the call, with no unpairing involved.

Screenshots have the same problem. You screenshot one text to send to a colleague or attach to a support ticket, and the image also captures the conversation list beside it, codes and all.

Why the usual advice only goes so far

The common advice is to share a single tab or window, close Messages before a call, or unpair the computer. All of that helps, and on a shared computer you should unpair. But it depends on remembering, every call. And sometimes the text is the thing you need to show: a confirmation from a supplier, a message from a customer, a delivery update you’re discussing with a colleague. What you want is to show that one conversation and keep the rest unreadable.

How to hide Google Messages texts with Smart Blur

Smart Blur is a browser extension that blurs personal information on the page itself, on your computer, before anyone on the call sees it. Nothing is uploaded and there’s no account. It works on Google Messages for web the same way it works on any other site, so the setup you make here also protects your inbox and every other tab you share.

Smart Blur has several ways to blur, and each suits a different part of the page. The first four are free.

Blur the whole conversation list with Draw

If you just want the conversation list gone before you share, choose Draw in the Smart Blur panel and drag a box over the left-hand column. Names, numbers, photos and message previews underneath are blurred.

The box stays on the conversations it was drawn over. If you scroll the list, the box moves with those conversations and new ones come into view uncovered, so draw it once the list is where you want it and leave it there during the call.

Blur one name, number or text with Click

To hide something specific, choose Click and click on it. Click the name or number at the top of a conversation to hide who it’s with. Click a single message to blur just that text while the rest of the conversation stays readable.

Click blurs the one item you clicked. If you open a different conversation, the page redraws, so check it again before carrying on.

Blur verification codes with your own pattern

Smart Blur doesn’t hide verification codes by default, because a six-digit number could be anything on most websites. In your text messages, it’s almost always a code. So add a pattern that only applies to Google Messages:

1. Click Edit next to Emails, phones, cards… in the panel.
2. Under Your own patterns, choose Describe it.
3. Name it “Verification codes”, leave Starts with empty, and set it to 6 to 6 digits.
4. Tick Limit to specific domains or URLs and enter messages.google.com.

Now every six-digit number in your texts is blurred, including codes written like G-482913, while dates, prices and card endings stay readable. Codes split by a space or a dash, like 482 913, aren’t caught. If your bank sends codes of a different length, add another pattern for that length rather than widening this one, since four-digit patterns would also blur years.

Blur phone numbers and emails with patterns

Turn on Emails, phones, cards… in the panel and Smart Blur blurs email addresses, card numbers and phone numbers as the page loads and as new texts arrive.

Google Messages shows numbers the way your phone formats them. Numbers with a country code, like +44 7700 900123 or +91 98765 43210, are blurred in any common format, and so are North American numbers like (416) 555-0123. Local numbers written without a country code, like 07700 900123, aren’t always recognised, so check your own list once. If one shows through, add it to Keywords to hide or cover it with Click.

Hide names everywhere with Keywords to hide

For people you’d rather never show on screen, add their names as Keywords to hide. Open Settings in the panel, choose Keywords to hide, and add each name. Smart Blur blurs the name wherever it appears, in the conversation list and inside conversations. If a name catches you by surprise mid-call, type it into Hide a keyword or name… in the panel and it’s blurred straight away until you reload the page.

Find names, addresses and account numbers with Local AI (Pro)

Patterns find text with a fixed shape. A lot of what arrives by text doesn’t have one: “Your parcel will be left with your neighbour at 18 Elm Road”, or a reminder from a clinic with your name in it. Smart Blur Pro adds Local AI, which reads the text on the page and blurs the names, addresses and account numbers it finds. It runs entirely on your computer after a one-time download, so your texts never leave it.

Screenshots

Because Smart Blur blurs the page itself, any screenshot you take of Google Messages, with your computer’s own screenshot tool or anything else, shows the blur too. Set up the blur first, then take the screenshot. Smart Blur Pro also has a Screenshot button that captures the visible area or a region you select, already blurred.

Turning it on when you share

Blurring works while Smart Blur is switched on, using the switch at the top of the panel. If you’d rather it switched on by itself, Smart Blur Pro adds Share Shield, which turns blurring on the moment you start sharing your screen from the browser.

What Smart Blur can’t cover

Smart Blur works inside the browser. If your browser shows desktop notifications for new texts, those are drawn by your operating system, outside the page, so it can’t blur them. Turn notifications off or switch on Do Not Disturb before you share your whole screen. Your phone is outside its reach too: a code that pops up on your phone during a video call is only protected by keeping the phone off camera.

Photos and images sent by text aren’t text, so patterns and Keywords to hide don’t see inside them. Use Click or Draw to cover them.

Your browser’s tabs can also give things away. Set Hide tab names in the panel to All tabs before you share. See hide tab names when screen sharing for what else tab titles reveal.

A quick check before your next call

Open Google Messages for web, open Smart Blur, and set up the verification code pattern and phone patterns once, so they’re there for every future call. Then start a test share or take a screenshot and look at it the way someone else on the call would. It takes a few minutes, and after that a code arriving mid-meeting stays unreadable.

If you also use WhatsApp or Telegram in the browser, the same approach works there: see hide WhatsApp Web chats in screen shares and screenshots and hide Telegram Web chats in screen shares and screenshots.