User guide

Poof for Zoom: add it, set it up, use it, remove it.

Last updated 7 October 2026

Poof is a Zoom App with two tricks for your own video, while you stay in the call:

• Vanish: you disappear from your picture and leave the empty room behind, until you come back. Crumble into dust, melt into a puddle that drains away, or get rubbed out by a giant eraser.
• Step away: a short clip of you sitting there loops over your camera, so you can leave for a moment without anyone noticing.

1. Requirements
2. Adding Poof
3. Opening it in a meeting
4. Setting up the trick
5. Vanish
6. Step away
7. Removing Poof
8. Troubleshooting

Requirements

• The Zoom desktop client for macOS or Windows, kept up to date. Poof is tested with Zoom 7.1.
• Your camera on, in a meeting. Poof only changes your own video; it cannot touch anyone else's.
• For Step away: a normal web browser (Chrome, Edge, Safari or Firefox) that may use your camera, to record the stand-in clip.
• No Poof account and no payment.

Adding Poof

1. Sign in at the Zoom App Marketplace and search for Poof.
2. Click Add. Zoom shows what Poof may access in meetings. Click Allow.
3. A page confirms that Poof is installed. You can close it.

Poof asks Zoom only for in-meeting access (zoomapp:inmeeting). It does not read your Zoom profile, contacts, calendar or recordings, and it does not create an account for you. If your Zoom account is managed by an organization, your admin may need to allow Poof first.

Opening it in a meeting

1. Join or start a meeting and turn your camera on.
2. Click Apps in the meeting toolbar (under More in narrow windows) and choose Poof.
3. Poof opens in the side panel. The first time, Zoom asks to start Camera Mode for Poof: allow it. That is how Poof draws on your video.

Setting up the trick

The panel walks you through three steps under Set up the trick:

1. The empty room (needed for everything). Click Capture empty room, step to the side out of the camera's view, and reach in to click Allow in Zoom's dialog (or press Return). Zoom takes the photo the moment you allow it.
2. A photo of you (needed for Melt, nice for Dust). Sit as you normally do, click Take photo of me and Allow. Poof finds your outline in it.
3. Your stand-in (for Step away). Choose 10, 15 or 30 seconds and click Record stand-in. A recording page opens in your normal browser: sit as you would in the meeting, record, click Use this one, and come back to Zoom when it says "All set".

Capture the room again whenever the light changes, or the vanish will leave a visible trace. The same goes for the stand-in. When your captures are more than 3 hours old, Poof offers to renew them.

Vanish

• Pick a style under Vanish by: Dust, Melt or Eraser.
• Click Vanish, or press ⇧⌘X on a Mac (Ctrl⇧X on Windows) while the Poof panel has focus.
• Click Come back (or the same shortcut) to reappear.

Everyone in the meeting sees the effect, because Zoom sends your video with Poof's drawing on top.

Step away

• Click Step away, or press ⇧⌘B (Ctrl⇧B on Windows). Your stand-in fades in over your camera and loops.
• Under How Step away behaves you can choose the transition (Drift, Bad signal, Dissolve or Fade), how slowly it blends (3, 6 or 10 seconds), and how the clip loops.
• Mute me while I'm away mutes your microphone when you step away. When you come back, Poof reminds you that you are still muted and offers to unmute.
• Click Come back to return to your live camera.

Removing Poof

1. Sign in at the Zoom App Marketplace.
2. Go to Manage → Added Apps, find Poof, and click Remove.
3. Confirm. Poof disappears from the Apps menu in your Zoom client.

Your stand-in clip is deleted from our server automatically within 24 hours of recording it. The photos Poof keeps live only in the Zoom client's app storage on your own computer. See the privacy policy for details.

Troubleshooting

Still stuck? Contact support.