With more of us working from than any more and relying on video calls to keep in touch with colleagues, it's enable access to our homes more than ever before. But sometimes you don't want people to see what's in your house. So video coferencing apps like Zoom and Skype allow you to blur your background.

This includes Skype's mobile app for iPhone and iPad, which added the feature in 2020, having already put it in the desktop version some time earlier.

That means that while you're on a video call you can quickly and easily hide the details of what's in your backdrop, whether that's because you want to hide your mess, or just create a visual distinction between you and your surroundings. If you use Skype on iPhone or iPad, enabling the feature is really easy. 

Skype's iPhone and iPad app now features blurred backgrounds, here's how to enable it photo 4
Pocket-lint

Actually using the feature is really easy. All you need to do is the following: 

  • Make sure to download the latest version of Skype from the App Store
  • Start a video call
  • Look for three toggle switches at the bottom of the screen
  • Toggle on the background blur one (looks like a person in front of a lined background)
  • Et voila... it's enabled 

If you're joining a meeting you've already started, you'll also see a background blur icon and a toggle switch in the same row as the microphone and camera toggles in the preview window. You can switch that on or off to enable background blue too. (You can see that in the header image at the top of this page).

Once you've enabled that setting, you should find that your background is completely blurred out. Of course, with it taking its visual information from a low quality front facing camera, you'll likely see that its seperation between you and your backdrop isn't completely accurate. 

You can download Skype for iPad here for free and Skype for iPhone here