If you’ve used the Street View feature in Google Maps, you know that you can enter almost any address and see a recent image of that location a business, government building, park, or residence. It’s useful for knowing which building or landmark to look for upon your arrival if it’s hard to find an entrance or you want to know where to park, but Street View can be a great way for stalkers or criminals to make their way inside your home. Makes planning easy.
Street View gives anyone a free ticket to check out your house on the Internet — they might want to find a camera or even open a side window. And of course, anyone can walk or drive by your house and do it in person, but Google Maps greatly simplifies the process. Anyone with a phone or computer can do it.
Luckily, there’s an easy way to blur your home on Google Maps and help prevent others from seeing too many details of where you live. Here’s how to do it.
For more, here are seven essential Google Maps tips for the holidays and how Google Maps can help you locate dinner.
How to blur your home on Google Maps
You’ll need to do this on your computer, as the blurring feature isn’t available in the Google Maps app on iOS or Android, and while it’s accessible via a web browser on your mobile device, it’s quite difficult to use, so Use a trusted web browser on your Mac or PC instead.
On maps.google.com, enter your home address in the top-right search bar, hit Return, then click the picture of your home that appears.
At the top-left of the page, just above your address, click on the photo of your home.
Screenshot by Nelson Aguilar/CNET
Next, you will see the Street View of your location. Click report a problem bottom-right. The text is very small, but it’s there.
This is the Street View of your location.
Screenshot by Nelson Aguilar/CNET
Now, it is up to you what you want Google to blur. Using your mouse, adjust the view of the image so that your house and everything you want to blur is contained within the red and black box. Use your cursor to move around and the plus and minus buttons to zoom in and out, respectively.
If you want to blur more of the black/red box, use the + button to zoom in.
Screenshot by Nelson Aguilar/CNET
Once you’ve finished adjusting the image, choose what you’re requesting to blur below:
- a face
- your home
- your car/license plate
- a different thing
If the image is busy with lots of cars, people, and other objects, you’ll be asked to give a little more detail about what exactly you want to blur.
Also, be absolutely sure that what you choose is what you want to blur. Google mentions that once you blur something on Street View, it’s permanently blurred.
Finally, enter your email (it is required), verify captcha (if required) and click submit,
You need to provide additional information about what you want to blur, so be careful with the whole.
Screenshot by Nelson Aguilar/CNET
You should then receive an email from Google saying it will review You will get back to you after your report and request is either rejected or approved. You may receive further emails from Google asking for more information regarding your request. Google doesn’t provide any information on how long it will take for your request to be processed, so keep an eye out for any further emails.
For more, here’s how Google Maps can help you avoid congested public transport.
