selfview

Self-view is a live preview of a participant’s own camera feed displayed within a video call or conferencing interface. It is used to help users judge how they are framed, lit, and perceived by others, and to make quick adjustments before and during a meeting. The feature is common across consumer and enterprise platforms and can be especially helpful for ensuring background appearance and camera angle are appropriate.

In typical implementations, self-view appears as a small window or picture-in-picture tile that can be moved, resized, or hidden. Some systems mirror the preview to reflect how the participant sees themselves, while others display the non-mirrored outgoing image to others. Users often have the option to turn self-view off to reduce distraction, save bandwidth, or minimize processing load, particularly on lower-end devices or unstable connections. Self-view may also be integrated with other video settings, such as virtual backgrounds or brightness adjustments.

Privacy and usability considerations surround self-view. Viewing one’s own surroundings can raise privacy concerns, so many platforms provide easy controls to disable or minimize the feature. In addition, self-view can impact bandwidth and CPU usage, which may affect call quality on limited networks or devices. Accessibility features and keyboard shortcuts are sometimes provided to streamline control, but support varies by platform. Overall, self-view is a common quality-of-life feature intended to improve user comfort and presentation during video communication.