What do other people see when you share your screen?
Viewers see what your meeting or recording tool captures, and that depends on the share mode. Share your entire screen and they see everything on that display: every window, notification banners, the menu bar or taskbar. Share one window or tab and they see only that.
Google Meet’s help page, for example, offers a tab, a window or your entire screen. The Zoom, Meet and Teams guide compares the tools.
What are the five ways to hide a window from a screen share?
Share a single window or tab, keep private windows on a second display or virtual desktop, turn on Do Not Disturb, tidy up before you share, or use a capture-excluded window. The first four are built into macOS, Windows and the common meeting tools. The fifth depends on your OS version and capture tool.
| Method | Protects | Fails when |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Share a single window or tab | Every other app, your desktop and, in most tools, notifications. | You need a second app and switch to entire-screen sharing in a hurry. |
| 2. Second display or virtual desktop | Anything on the display or desktop you are not sharing. | Displays are mirrored, or you pick the wrong screen in the share dialog. |
| 3. Focus or Do Not Disturb | Notification banners: messages, email subjects, calendar titles. | It never hides windows, and allowed people and apps still get through. |
| 4. Tidy up before sharing | Leaks inside what you share: tabs, bookmarks, recent files. | You forget, or you need the window open during the share. |
| 5. Capture-excluded window | One window that must sit on the shared display. | The OS version or capture tool does not honour it: documented on Windows 10 version 2004 and newer, inconsistent on recent macOS. |
Does sharing a single window hide my other apps?
Yes. When you share one window or browser tab, the tool sends only that window, so your other apps, your desktop and, in most tools, notification banners stay off the stream. It depends on neither your OS version nor an extra app, which makes it the most reliable method.
- You need a second app. Do not jump to entire-screen sharing. Stop the share and start a new one for the second window.
- The window itself leaks. Tabs, a bookmarks bar or a chat sidebar inside it are visible. Method 4 covers these.
- The app has several windows. Depending on the tool, dialogs and extra windows may be left out or shared too.
Does a second monitor or virtual desktop keep a window private?
Yes, if the private window is on a display you are not sharing. An entire-screen share sends only the display you pick; windows on the other are not sent. A virtual desktop (a Space on macOS, a Task View desktop on Windows) does the same on one screen, until you switch desktops during an entire-screen share.
It fails when displays are mirrored, when a projector duplicates your laptop screen, and when you pick the wrong screen in the share dialog. One product detail: Kopya captures the primary display only, so share that display and drag the Kopya panel to the other one.
How do I stop notifications showing while I share my screen?
Turn on Do Not Disturb before you share. It silences notification banners, the most common accidental leak in an entire-screen share: a message preview, an email subject, a calendar title. It hides banners only, never windows, so pair it with another method.
- macOS: Control Center, Focus, Do Not Disturb. System Settings also has a Notifications option for banners while you mirror or share the display.
- Windows 11: the notification center has a Do not disturb switch. Windows 10 calls it Focus assist.
- Meeting tools: many can mute notifications during a meeting or a share.
What should I tidy up before I share my screen?
Close what you will not show, then look at what is left the way a viewer would. A tidy-up catches the small leaks the other methods miss: browser tabs, bookmarks, autocomplete suggestions, recent-file lists and desktop icons.
- Quit mail and chat apps instead of minimising them.
- Use a separate browser window or profile with only the tabs you will show.
- Hide the bookmarks bar and desktop icons.
- Open documents in advance, so nobody watches you scroll a recent-files list.
Desktop-cleanup utilities automate parts of this, which is a convenience rather than a new kind of protection. Anything you open later is visible, and a tidy-up cannot help with a window you need during the share, such as speaker notes or an assistant panel.
Can a window stay hidden when I share my entire screen?
Sometimes. A capture-excluded window is a window whose app has asked the operating system to leave it out of screenshots, recordings and screen shares while it stays visible on your own display. On Windows 10 version 2004 and newer this is documented behaviour. On macOS results vary by macOS version and capture tool.
On Windows the app sets WDA_EXCLUDEFROMCAPTURE. Microsoft documents that such a window does not appear at all in captures, that builds before Windows 10 version 2004 show it with no content instead (a black rectangle), and that this is not a security feature. The Windows guide has the detail.
On macOS the flag is NSWindow.sharingType = .none. Apple’s documentation calls it a legacy constant and says not to use it to hide content from capture, and Electron’s documentation says apps that capture through ScreenCaptureKit will capture such a window. An Apple DTS engineer wrote in July 2025: “At this time there are no public APIs for preventing screen capture.” The Mac guide covers what still works.
You cannot switch this on for someone else’s app: Microsoft says the window must belong to the calling process, so the developer has to build it in, as OBS Studio and Signal do for their own windows. How screen capture exclusion works explains the APIs.
Kopya is a desktop AI assistant for macOS and Windows that answers questions about what is on your screen when you press a hotkey; its panel is excluded from supported screen shares and recordings. The setting is on by default on every plan, including the free plan. The screen-share privacy page describes it in full, and what is an invisible AI overlay defines the term and its limits.
Which method should I use, and how do I test it?
Start with a single window or tab: it depends on nothing but your choice in the share dialog. Add Do Not Disturb and a tidy-up every time. Put notes on a second display. Keep a capture-excluded window for the one thing that must sit on the shared display.
Then test the exact tool, share mode and displays you will use: join from a second device, or record ten seconds and play it back. Kopya has not published test results for specific meeting or recording tools yet, so run the 60-second self-test on the compatibility page and repeat it after updates. If the panel appears, fall back to methods 1 and 2. See also presenting and recording tutorials.
Common questions
Which of these methods work on a Mac?
All five exist on macOS. Single-window sharing, a second display, Focus and a tidy-up are built in and do not depend on the macOS version. A capture-excluded window is the inconsistent one on recent macOS: built-in screen recording has been reported to capture such windows. The Mac guide has the detail.
Sources
- Microsoft Learn — SetWindowDisplayAffinity
- Microsoft Learn — GetWindowDisplayAffinity
- Apple Developer — NSWindow.SharingType.none
- Apple Developer Forums — DTS reply on preventing screen capture (July 2025)
- Electron docs — BrowserWindow (setContentProtection)
- Google Meet Help — Present during a meeting
- OBS Studio PR #5698 — Hide OBS windows from capture
- Signal blog — Screen security on Windows