How to Share Your Mac Screen During an Online Meeting

Sharing your screen from a Mac during a video call is usually a single click in the meeting app, but macOS adds a privacy layer that often blocks it the first time. This guide covers the permission step, the sharing itself and the fixes for the most common failures. It applies to meeting apps installed on the Mac and to meetings that run in a web browser.

Before you start

Decide what kind of screen sharing you need. Showing your screen to people in a meeting is handled by the meeting app or browser. Letting someone see and control your Mac remotely is a different feature, provided by the built-in Screen Sharing setting in macOS or by a remote support tool. This article covers the meeting scenario.

Screen sharing in a meeting is not a local-only process. The meeting service captures your screen on the Mac and sends it to the other participants over the internet, so the service's own privacy and data handling terms apply. If you work with confidential material, check your organisation's policy and the meeting provider's documentation rather than assuming the stream is not stored or recorded.

Check which macOS version you are running by opening the Apple menu and choosing About This Mac. Since macOS Catalina, apps need explicit permission to record the screen, and the settings app changed its name and layout in macOS Ventura. Knowing your version tells you which steps below apply.

Have an administrator account available if the Mac is not yours alone, because changing privacy permissions may require an administrator password. On a work Mac managed by an IT department, the permission may be controlled centrally and cannot be changed locally.

Step-by-step instructions

Grant screen recording permission

Step 1: Start the meeting app, or open the meeting in your browser, and try to share your screen once. On first use macOS usually shows a prompt saying the app would like to record the screen, with a button that opens the system settings.

Step 2: On macOS Ventura and later, open System Settings, select Privacy & Security, then open the screen recording section. Depending on the version it is called Screen Recording or Screen & System Audio Recording. On macOS Catalina, Big Sur and Monterey, open System Preferences, choose Security & Privacy, select the Privacy tab, then Screen Recording; click the lock icon and enter your password to make changes.

Step 3: Turn on the switch or tick the checkbox next to the app that runs the meeting. For a browser-based meeting, enable the browser itself, such as Safari, Chrome, Edge or Firefox, not the website. If the app is not listed, use the add button below the list to select it from the Applications folder.

Step 4: Quit and reopen the app when macOS asks you to. The permission does not take effect in an app that was already running, so rejoin the meeting after the restart. This change is reversible: you can switch the permission off again in the same place at any time.

Share your screen in the meeting

Step 5: Before sharing, close windows and tabs you do not want others to see, and consider turning on a Focus mode such as Do Not Disturb so that message previews do not appear on screen during the presentation.

Step 6: In the meeting, use the share or present button in the toolbar. The exact label depends on the app.

Step 7: Choose what to share. Sharing a single window or browser tab exposes less of your desktop and is the safer default. Sharing an entire screen is useful when you need to switch between several apps. If you use more than one display, make sure you select the one that holds the content you want to present.

Step 8: If you need participants to hear sound from a video or app, look for a share-sound or include-audio option in the meeting app's sharing dialog. Whether computer audio can be shared, and how, depends on the app and on your macOS version, so check the app's own help if no such option appears.

Step 9: In recent macOS versions, some apps hand the choice of window or display to a system picker, and a screen sharing icon may appear in the menu bar while sharing is active. Use either the meeting app's stop button or that menu bar control to end the share when you are finished.

Check the output

The most reliable check is to ask a participant what they see, or join the same meeting from a second device such as a phone and watch your own share. Confirm that the correct window or display is visible, that the content updates when you scroll or switch slides, and that sound comes through if you enabled it.

Look for the sharing indicator on your Mac. Most meeting apps show a border, banner or floating control while sharing, and newer macOS versions show a screen recording indicator in the menu bar. If none of these appear, the share has probably not started.

Expect some loss of quality. Meeting services compress the screen stream and adapt it to the network connection, so small text, fast motion and video playback may look softer or less smooth to viewers than on your display. Enlarging text, using a larger font size in documents or sharing a single window rather than a high-resolution full screen can make content easier to read.

Common problems and next steps

Others see only your desktop wallpaper, a black screen or an empty window. This is the typical sign that screen recording permission is missing for the app. Grant it as described above, then fully quit and reopen the app. If the app is already enabled, switch the permission off and on again and restart the app.

The app does not appear in the screen recording list. Try to share once so macOS registers the request, or add the app manually with the add button. For browser meetings, remember that the permission belongs to the browser.

The permission setting is greyed out or keeps resetting. On a managed Mac, screen recording may be controlled by your organisation, so contact your IT department instead of trying to override it. On newer macOS versions you may also see periodic reminders asking whether an app should keep its screen recording access; confirming keeps sharing working.

Only one window is shared when you wanted the whole screen, or the wrong display is shown. Stop sharing and start again, choosing the entire screen or the correct display in the selection dialog.

Participants cannot hear video or app sound. Check whether the meeting app offers an option to share computer audio and whether it was enabled before you started sharing. If the app does not support it on your setup, consult its documentation rather than installing unknown audio tools.

You actually need remote control rather than a presentation. To let someone view and operate your Mac, look at the Screen Sharing option in the Sharing section of System Settings or System Preferences, or use a remote support tool approved by your organisation. Only grant remote access to people you trust, and turn it off when the session ends.