How incogno stays hidden from screen share, and where it can’t

macOS and Windows both let an app mark a window as protected from screen capture. With stealth mode on, incogno sets that protection on its overlay. Meeting apps that share your screen through the operating system leave the window out, so the people watching see whatever is behind it while the overlay stays on your own display.

Every macOS window has a sharing setting. While stealth mode is on, incogno sets its overlay, settings and setup windows to none, which tells macOS not to let other apps read those windows’ contents. Screen-sharing and recording apps that capture through the system leave them out.

Requires macOS 13 (Ventura) or later on Apple Silicon (M1 or newer).

Windows gives each window a display-affinity setting. Windows 10 version 2004 added a mode that removes a window from screen capture entirely; before that, a protected window could only be painted black, which gives it away. In stealth mode incogno applies the exclude-from-capture mode to its overlay and supporting windows.

That mode is available from Windows 10 version 2004, which is also incogno’s minimum supported Windows version. Windows 11 is supported too.

The protection applies to software screen capture. It can’t do anything about:

• People who can see your monitor, or a camera pointed at it.
• Hardware capture, such as an HDMI capture card or an external recorder.
• Tools that capture the screen another way. Some meeting-app capture settings, and some remote-desktop, remote-support and recording tools, may not honor the system protection.
• Operating-system updates. Apple and Microsoft control these protections and can change how they behave.

That’s why we describe stealth mode as designed to keep the overlay out of screen share and recordings on supported setups, and why we suggest checking yours.

1. Start a meeting with only yourself in it (Zoom has one at zoom.us/test), or start a recording in the app you normally use.
2. Share your entire screen, not a single window, using the meeting app version and settings you normally use.
3. Turn on stealth mode in incogno and open the overlay.
4. Look at the shared view or the recording. The overlay should not appear in it.

If it does appear, email support@incogno.ai with your OS version and meeting app. That report helps us most.

Stealth mode exists for the same reason presenters use speaker notes: your notes, prep and AI answers belong on your screen, not everyone else’s. It doesn’t change your obligations. Follow your organization’s policies and the recording and disclosure rules that apply to your meetings. For everyday ways to keep notes private while presenting, see how to keep your notes private while screen sharing, and for how incogno handles your data, see our Security page.