Privacy Screen for Gmail by Chameleon EN

Reading Gmail in a cafe, on a train, or in an open office means anyone nearby can read it too. Hardware privacy screens dim your display and protect one device. Chameleon does it in software: your inbox looks like gibberish to everyone around you, while you keep reading normally.

Chameleon adds four viewing modes to Gmail. Each changes how email looks on your screen without changing anything in the email itself. Everything runs locally in your browser - no account, no server, no tracking.

🔒 Privacy Screen - Hide your Gmail from prying eyes

Scrambles the visible text in your inbox and email threads using font-based character substitution. To anyone glancing at your screen, your Gmail is unreadable noise. To you, it is one hover away: hover over any inbox row to reveal that message, or hold to read an open email through a moving reveal window. The eye button reveals or re-scrambles everything in one tap.

No webcam, no gaze detection, no battery drain, and nothing to re-enable: your settings survive page reloads and tab switches automatically. Some users report learning to read the scrambled text directly and stop revealing at all.

Important: this is visual obfuscation, not cryptographic security. It protects against shoulder surfing - the person next to you in a cafe, train, or open office - not a determined attacker with access to your device.

Best for: commuters, cafe and coworking workers, open-office employees, anyone reading sensitive email in shared spaces.

🔍 Increase Font Size - Bigger Gmail text without breaking the layout

Unlike browser zoom, which scales everything (sidebar, buttons, headers, menus), Chameleon increases only the text you read. Subject lines, sender names, preview text, and message bodies scale up to 180%. Gmail's interface stays at its default size. No horizontal scrolling, no oversized sidebar. Your preferred size is saved automatically.

Best for: laptop users (especially 13-inch screens), anyone over 40, people with low vision, anyone who finds Gmail's default text too small.

📖 Reader Mode - Read email like a book

Opens any email or thread in a clean, full-screen reading view. Gmail's sidebar, toolbar, and clutter disappear. Your message renders in comfortable serif typography, centered in a 68-character column - the same line width used by books and e-readers. Three themes (light, sepia, dark), a 3-step font size control, thread navigation, single-keystroke activation.

Best for: long emails, newsletters, detailed threads, knowledge workers with high email volume, anyone who needs fewer visual distractions to focus.

🎯 Focus - Quiet the inbox

Dims low-signal inbox rows - promotional, no-reply, and CC'd messages - so the conversations that matter stand out. A calmer inbox without leaving Gmail, switching views, or hiding anything.

Best for: anyone who feels overwhelmed opening Gmail, deep-work and digital-minimalism fans.

🔐 Privacy and trust

Chameleon runs entirely in your browser. Nothing is collected automatically, and no email content ever leaves your machine. The only data we ever receive is what you explicitly submit: optional survey answers, feedback, or your email if you ask for updates. Two permissions only: storage (saves your preferences locally) and mail.google.com (required to change how Gmail looks). No analytics. No account. No tracking. Manifest V3 - every claim here is verifiable in this listing's permissions tab.

How it works

Chameleon applies visual transformations inside Gmail using CSS and font substitution, entirely within your browser. No email content is modified, stored, or transmitted. All modes run locally and only change how the page appears on your screen. Activate one mode or combine several from the Chameleon icon in Gmail's toolbar.

What Chameleon is not

Not encryption - Privacy Screen provides visual obfuscation, not cryptographic security.
Not a data collection tool - the extension does not collect or transmit any email data.
Not a Gmail replacement - it changes how you see email, not how Gmail works.

Permissions explained

Storage - saves your preferences (active modes, zoom level, reader theme) locally in your browser.
mail.google.com - required so Chameleon can restyle Gmail. No other sites are accessed.

Built by an independent team

Chameleon is built by Chameleon Labs, an independent team based in Europe. We do not take funding that requires us to monetize user data. We will never sell data, show ads, or require an account to use the core features. Support and feature requests: use the support tab on this listing, or visit chameleonlabs.adaptivemessages.com.