Maybe I should begin this article by arguing that nothing spices up a mundane meeting like a creative, beautiful, or hilarious background for your Zoom calls. But the reality is that most of us just need to hide messy offices, guestroom beds, or dirty-dish-filled kitchens.
These three websites offer up almost half a million free Zoom backgrounds for your perusal, so forget tidying up and get that scrolling finger ready.
Pexels: Something for everyone
The undisputed king of free Zoom backgrounds, Pexels houses more than 450,000 photos and more than 50,000 videos in its Zoom section.
With that many options, you have . . . well, options. Whether you’re looking for something professional, fun, or quirky, Pexels has you covered: nature, home, office, space, people—you name it. If you can’t find it here, it might not exist.
Photos can be filtered by orientation, size, and color to help you whittle down your selection. They can also be sorted by popularity or latest additions.
Unsplash: Modern masterpieces
With only (only?!) 10,000 or so Zoom background images, Unsplash can’t hold a candle to Pexels’s giant collection, but this site specializes in slick backgrounds that will make your Zoom calls look posh and polished.
There are some great options here, mostly skewing to the modern end of the spectrum. They’re like what your office could look like if you had the time, money, awesome lighting, and daily cleaning service.
Images can be filtered by landscape and portrait orientations, and sorted by relevance, date, and “curated,” which features hand-picked selections.
Freepik: No nonsense, no distractions
When you need a background to hide your background, Freepik has a wonderful selection of understated options.
There are lots of plants here. Lots and lots of plants. However, there’s also a great selection of slightly-blurred backgrounds that give your setup a nice, real-life depth of field to make things seem as realistic as possible.
With not-quite 4,000 images on hand, this is the smallest collection of the bunch, but it’s a great place to start if you’re looking for something neutral and nondescript.
It’s also got the most robust searching features, with more than a dozen filtering options to help you hone in on a most excellent downloadable.
