Guide

How to blur sensitive information in a screen recording.

Demos and tutorials are full of things that shouldn't be public: your email, API keys, customer names, card numbers. Here are two ways to hide them on Windows, and how to make sure not a single frame slips through.

What usually needs hiding

• Account details: your email, your colleagues' names, the account switcher.
• Secrets: API keys, tokens, webhook secrets, passwords shown in settings.
• Customer data: names, emails, phone numbers and amounts in tables.
• Payment info: card numbers and bank details.
• Browser clues: the address bar, bookmarks and other open tabs.

Option 1: by hand in a video editor

Most editors (for example DaVinci Resolve or Premiere Pro) can blur part of a video:

1. Add a blur or mosaic effect with a mask, and draw the mask over the text.
2. If the text moves (you scroll, a panel slides in), track the mask or add keyframes so it moves with the text.
3. Scrub through frame by frame where the text moves fast. A mask that lags by one frame can show the whole value.
4. Repeat for every value, every time it appears.

This works, but it is slow, and fast scrolling is where it usually goes wrong: the mask trails behind the text for a frame or two.

Option 2: automatically, with a blur that follows the text

CyanFocus reads the text in your recording on your PC and follows it frame by frame. In the editor:

1. Open the Blur panel and click Find text in this video.
2. Emails, keys, card and phone numbers are listed at the top. Tick the ones to hide, or click Blur all.
3. Any other text can be clicked in the preview, or you can draw your own box.
4. Pick Blur, Pixelate or Solid. The blur moves with the text through scrolls, sticky headers and page changes, and is burned into the export.

Before you publish

• Watch the export at full speed and frame by frame around scrolls and page changes.
• Check the first and last second. Things often show up while you set up or stop the recording.
• Use test data when you can. A demo account means there is less to hide in the first place.
• Don't forget the audio. If you read a value out loud, a blur won't help.