BlurMe is a lightweight, real-time screen blurring tool that protects your privacy during presentations, streaming, or screen sharing. With customizable blur intensity, grayscale conversion, and opacity control, BlurMe creates a soft-focus overlay over your entire screen — activated instantly with global hotkeys.

📦 Latest Release: v1.1.0 — Pre-built binaries available for Windows, macOS, and Linux.

Important Notes:

• 🔧 Run from source for the latest features. Pre-built binaries are available for each OS under Releases, but running from source ensures you have the newest updates.

📋 For detailed version history, see CHANGELOG.md

Grab the latest release for your operating system from the Releases page:

• Windows
• macOS
• Linux

Run the executable — no installation required, make sure to read the release notes!

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/YOUR_USERNAME/BlurMe.git
cd BlurMe

# Install dependencies
pip install -r requirements.txt

# Launch BlurMe
python src/blurme.py

• Real-time Screen Blur — Applies a Gaussian blur to your entire screen with adjustable radius.
• Grayscale Mode — Convert the blurred image to grayscale with configurable intensity.
• Opacity Control — Fine-tune the overlay transparency.
• Global Hotkeys — Toggle, adjust settings, and close without ever touching the mouse.
• Cross-Platform — Works on Windows, macOS, and Linux (X11).
• Low CPU Usage — Optimized capture and processing; uses OpenCV acceleration when available.
• Persistent Settings — Your preferences are saved automatically to blur.conf.
• Extra Privacy (Sound Mute) — Optionally mute system audio when blur is active for complete privacy.

BlurMe stores settings in blur.conf next to the executable:

blur = colored        # or "grayscale"
blurness = 50         # blur intensity (1-100)
opacity = 255         # overlay opacity (0-255)
grayness = 128        # grayscale intensity (0-255)
sound = 0             # 0 = mute audio when blur active, 1 = keep audio

Set sound = 0 (default) to automatically mute system audio when the blur overlay is active. This provides complete privacy during presentations or screen sharing — no unexpected sounds will play from your computer.

Set sound = 1 to keep audio normal.

BlurMe responds to the following global hotkeys (press simultaneously where noted):

On some keyboards, + and * may require the Shift key or be located on the numeric keypad.

BlurMe transforms your screen in real-time. Here are some examples:

Original	Colored Blur	Grayscale Blur
		–

Left: original screen content. Middle/Right: with BlurMe overlay active.

• Python 3.12 or higher
• pip package manager
• Linux users: X11 session required (Wayland not supported)

To create a standalone executable for your platform:

pip install pyinstaller
pyinstaller --onefile --windowed --icon=src/blurme.ico src/blurme.py

• Multi-Backend Processing: Automatically selects the fastest available image processing library (OpenCV → Pillow).
• Efficient Screen Capture: Uses mss (Multi-Screen Screenshot) for low-latency, high-performance screen grabbing.
• Global Hotkeys: Reliable key detection via pynput, with special handling for numpad keys and modifiers.
• Persistent Configuration: Settings stored in plain-text blur.conf next to the executable or script.
• Overlay Window: A frameless, click-through, always-on-top window that paints the processed screen image with adjustable opacity.
• X11 Specifics: On Linux, uses xprop to enforce fullscreen and docking window properties for reliable overlay behavior.
• Windows DPI Awareness: Applies display affinity to ensure the overlay stays on top even in high‑DPI scenarios.

Measured on a 4‑core CPU at 30 FPS. Enabling OpenCV can reduce load by up to 50%.

BlurMe is open-source (MIT License) and welcomes contributions:

• New features (e.g., region selection, multiple monitors)
• Performance improvements
• Bug fixes and platform compatibility enhancements
• Documentation and translations

Please submit pull requests or issues via GitHub.

MIT License — See LICENSE for full details.

Built with appreciation for the open-source Python community and the developers of mss, pynput, and PyQt5. Inspired by the need for simple, effective screen privacy tools.