Blur private details

Blur hides part of the screen in everything made from a recording. Draw a box over an email address, a customer's name, an API key or a balance, choose when it applies, and TurtleScene destroys that area in the narrated video and its translated versions, the 9:16 and 1:1 cuts, highlights, GIF, thumbnail and help article, the clickable demo, and any story video made from the same recording.

The blurred area isn't covered by a layer that can be switched off: the pixels are averaged into coarse blocks, mixed with noise and smoothed, so what was there can't be read or recovered from the video. It shows as a soft frosted panel with rounded corners.

#Add a blur

1. Open the narrated video in the editor.
2. In the editor's left rail, click Blur. The preview switches to your recording if it was showing the final video.
3. Find a frame that shows what you want to hide. Click the timeline below the video to jump, use −1 s and +1 s, or step one frame at a time with ‹ and ›.
4. Drag a box on the video over the area. It appears as a frosted panel and in the list as Area 1.
5. Drag the box to move it, or drag one of its corners to resize it. Leave a little margin around the text.
6. Click Save blur.

Add another box for each separate area. Each one is listed with its number and when it applies.

#Let AI find private details

Find sensitive info looks for things you may have missed. It checks a few frames of the recording for email addresses, phone numbers, keys and passwords, and people's names, and lists what it finds as suggestions. Nothing is blurred until you choose it.

1. In the Blur panel, under Find sensitive info, click Find. Suggested areas appear as dashed orange boxes on the video and in the list, each with what was read there and a time range.
2. Click a suggestion to jump to where it was found.
3. Click Blur it to add it as an area, or the cross to dismiss it.
4. Check the time range of each area you added (see below), then click Save blur.

#Choose when it applies

A new box applies to the whole video. If what you're hiding is only on screen for part of the recording, limit it to that part:

1. Select the area in the list or on the video.
2. Move the playhead to where it should start and click From here.
3. Move the playhead to where it should stop and click To here.
4. Click Save blur.

The range shows under the area's name, for example Start – 0:22.6. Click Whole video to apply it everywhere again. While you play the recording, an area is frosted only while its range is on, and On now marks it in the list. The selected area's range is also shown as an orange bar under the timeline.

Blurs are applied a moment before and after the range you set, so a frame on the edge is never missed. When something moves or appears in different places, add a box for each place and time.

#Render again after a change

Blur is applied when a video is made, so a video you rendered before adding or changing a blur still shows the area. After you save, the Blur panel says Blur changed: render again:

1. Click Render again (or Re-render at the top of the editor).
2. When the render finishes, make your formats again from the Formats tab. Formats can't be made from a video that is behind its blur.

Until you render again, the share link of the video plays your recording with the blur applied instead of the old video, or shows "This video is being prepared" for a few minutes while the blurred copy is made. Nobody with the link sees the area you blurred.

#Where the blur applies

Blurs belong to the recording, not to one video, so everything made from that recording hides the same areas:

• Narrated video and translated versions: destroyed in every frame, including zooms, the spotlight and the title card's preview of your screen.
• Formats: the cuts, highlights, GIF, thumbnail and the help article's screenshots are made from the video, so they include the blur once you render again.
• Clickable demo: steps made from the recording get the blur too. A clickable demo built after you saved the blur uses blurred screens. A clickable demo you built before gets a blur box on each screen that showed the area, and viewers, embeds and exports get a copy of that screen with the area destroyed. See Using the editor.
• Story videos: a story made from the recording uses blurred key frames and screen clips. For a story you made before adding the blur, open it and click Recreate video: the new version is made from the blurred recording, and the key frames it shares with the earlier version are replaced with blurred ones.

Other demo videos made from the same recording also need Render again before they include a new blur.

#Change or remove a blur

1. In the Blur panel, select the area.
2. Move or resize it, change its range, or click the bin icon to delete it. You can also press Delete.
3. Click Save blur, then render again.

Undo changes puts back the blurs as they were last saved.

#Things to know

• Blur hides an area from the moment the video is rendered with it. Anyone who downloaded or saved a video before you added the blur still has that copy.
• A recording can be deleted only once every demo video made from it has been rendered with its current blur, so no video is left showing something you blurred.
• If the recording has been deleted, its blur can't be changed. See Recordings library & reuse.
• Record in a test account or with demo data where you can. Blur is for the details you couldn't keep off screen.

Related: Render, download & share · Privacy and security