Before You Share Your Screen: A 7-Point Pre-Flight Check
A screen share is the one part of a call where a small mistake is permanent. Say something clumsy and it fades; put the wrong window on screen for two seconds and it is in someone’s memory, and possibly in a cloud recording.
None of this is difficult. It is just rarely done in a particular order. Here is that order.
1. Silence notifications at the operating-system level
Not in Slack. Not in the meeting app. In the OS, which is what actually draws the banner over the top of whatever you are sharing.
macOS: open Control Centre from the menu bar, click Focus, and turn on Do Not Disturb. You can also set it in System Settings under Focus, where you can schedule it or have it turn on automatically when you are screen sharing.
Windows 11: Settings → System → Notifications → Do not disturb. There is also a priority list there, which is worth checking, because “do not disturb” with a long allowlist is not do not disturb. On Windows 10 the equivalent is Focus assist in the Action Centre.
This is the single highest-value item on the list, because a notification banner arrives with its preview text attached, and it arrives on top of everything.
2. Share one window rather than the whole screen
If the meeting app gives you the choice, take it. Sharing a single window is dramatically narrower than sharing a display: your desktop, your other apps and your notification banners are simply not in the capture, because they are different windows.
Modern capture reads the target window’s own contents rather than scraping that rectangle of the screen, so even a window sitting on top of the shared one does not bleed into the stream. That is true on macOS through ScreenCaptureKit and on Windows through the Graphics Capture API.
Sharing a browser tab is narrower still — the page only, without your tab strip, address bar or bookmarks.
3. Know which display you are sending
If you run two monitors, the picker lists both and sends exactly one. Two failure modes are common enough to be worth naming: choosing the wrong display under time pressure, and running the displays mirrored, which makes the second screen show the first and defeats the arrangement entirely.
4. Deal with the tab strip
Sharing a browser window also shares its tab strip, and tab titles are surprisingly revealing. If you are walking through something in a browser, either share the tab rather than the window, or open a clean window with only the tabs you intend to show.
5. Know what stays visible whatever you do
Some things are not covered by any of the above:
- Your mouse cursor. The operating system draws it into the capture. Hiding a window does not hide the pointer moving over it.
- The menu bar and Dock, or the taskbar, if you share a whole display — which effectively lists your open apps.
- Anything you paste into the shared surface.
If you want a specific answer for your setup rather than a general one, our free screen share checker takes your meeting app, your operating system and what you are sharing, and tells you what lands in the capture. Every claim on it is labelled with how we know it, including the ones we have not been able to test ourselves.
6. Tidy what will be on screen
A desktop covered in files named after clients, a download bar, a half-finished document in the recent-files list. None of it is catastrophic and all of it is noise. Thirty seconds of tidying buys you the ability to stop thinking about it.
7. Do one dry run
Start a meeting with yourself, share what you intend to share, and look at what the participant view shows. It takes a minute and it is the only step that tests the other six together. It is also the only way to catch the setup-specific surprises: a stubborn overlay, a second display you forgot was mirrored, a notification from an app you did not think to silence.
Frequently asked questions
How do I hide notifications when sharing my screen?
Turn on Do Not Disturb at the operating-system level — Control Centre → Focus on macOS, or Settings → System → Notifications → Do not disturb on Windows 11 — rather than muting individual apps. Notifications are drawn by the OS on top of whatever you are sharing, so silencing them centrally is the only reliable fix. Sharing a single window instead of a whole display also keeps banners out of the capture, since they are separate windows.
Do notifications show up if I share only one window?
No. A notification banner is its own window, so sharing a single application window or a browser tab does not include it. It still appears on your screen, and anyone physically near you can read it, but it does not reach the call. Turning on Do Not Disturb is still worth it so your own attention is not pulled away mid-sentence.
Can people see my other tabs when I share my screen?
It depends what you picked. Sharing a browser tab sends that page only — not your other tabs, your address bar or your bookmarks. Sharing the browser window includes the tab strip, so your other tab titles are visible. Sharing your entire display includes everything on it.
Does sharing my screen share my audio too?
Only if you turn it on. It is “Share sound” in Zoom, “Share tab audio” or “Share system audio” in Chrome, and “Include computer sound” in Teams. If you do enable it, everything your machine plays goes down the same pipe, including audio from apps you are not showing.
