If you’re an avid Google Maps user, you probably rely on Street View—a first-person tool that displays real-time photos of streets, buildings, and homes—to get more information about your destination. These images are captured by Google’s ubiquitous camera cars.
Street View also has many practical uses: you can look at the exterior of a restaurant or bar before you visit, or identify an apartment in a building you’ve never been in. If you’re driving to an unfamiliar house, you can use Street View when you arrive to check that you’re in the right place.
But for all its benefits, Street View can also be used as a tool for stalkers and criminals, giving anyone the ability to examine parts of your home without actually being there in person.
Of course, someone could just walk or drive by your house and look at where you live, but with Google Maps, it’s easy to do that from the comfort of your couch. Anyone with a phone or computer can do it.
Luckily, there’s an easy way to blur your home on Google Maps and prevent others from seeing too many details about where you live. Here’s how.
For more information, see essential Google Maps travel tips.
Check this out: How to blur your home or an object in Google Maps
How to blur your home on Google Maps
You’ll need to do this on your computer – the blur feature isn’t available in the Google Maps app on iOS or Android. It’s accessible via the web browser on your mobile device, but it’s quite difficult to use, so a trusted web browser on your Mac or PC is your best bet.
At maps.google.com, enter your home address in the search bar at the top right, press Enter, then click the photo of your home that appears.
Click on the photo of your home at the top left of the page, directly above your address.
Next, you will see the Street View of your location. Click on Report a problem bottom right. The text is super small, but it’s there.
This is the street view of your location.
Now it’s up to you to choose what you want Google to blur. Use your mouse to adjust the view of the image so that your home and everything else you want to blur is within the red and black boxes. Use the cursor to move and the plus and minus buttons to zoom in and out.
If you want to blur more than the contents of the black/red box, use the “+” button to zoom in.
When you’re done adjusting the image, choose what to blur underneath:
- A face
- Your home
- Your car/license plate
- Another object
You will be asked to be a little more specific about what exactly you want to blur if the image contains multiple cars, people and other objects.
Also, make sure you select exactly what you want to blur. Google points out that once you blur something in Street View, the blur is permanent.
Finally, enter your email address (this is required), check the captcha (if required) and click Submit.
You will need to provide additional information about what you want to blur, so be careful.
You should then receive an email from Google letting you know that they are reviewing your report and will get back to you once the request is either rejected or approved. You may receive further emails from Google asking for more information about your request. Google does not provide any information on how long it will take to process your request, so just watch for further emails.
To learn more, take a look at how Google developed Immersive View for Maps.
