If you share a single Window, Teams shows only that app; other windows and notifications stay private. If you share your Screen, attendees see everything on that monitor, including any app you switch to and pop-up notifications. Teams has no feature that lists your open apps to other people in the meeting.
The question usually comes up right after someone shares their screen and a chat preview from a colleague pops up in the corner for everyone to read. So let's be specific about what each Teams option captures, because "share screen" in Teams is really four different things.
What Teams shows for each share option
When you select Share in a Teams meeting, Microsoft says you can "present your entire screen or a window", or live-share a PowerPoint file, an Excel file or a Whiteboard (Microsoft Support: Share content in Teams meetings). Here is what attendees get from each.
| Share option | What attendees see | Other windows | Notifications | Your speaker notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Screen | Everything on the chosen monitor | Visible if on that monitor | Visible | Visible if on screen |
| Window | One app window | Hidden | Hidden | Hidden (if in another app) |
| PowerPoint Live | Your slides, rendered by Teams | Hidden | Hidden | Hidden (presenter view) |
| Excel Live / Whiteboard | The shared file or board | Hidden | Hidden | Not applicable |
One detail people miss: with Screen, "visible" means visible the moment it's on that monitor. Alt+Tab to your inbox for three seconds and the inbox is on the call for three seconds.
Sharing your screen: Teams sees everything on that monitor
Screen sharing captures the whole display, not a list of apps. Teams draws a red border around the shared area so you can tell it's live. Everything inside that border goes out: the taskbar, desktop icons, whatever window you open next, and Windows toast notifications with message previews.
Multiple monitors change this in a useful way. Teams asks which display to share, and only that display is captured. Your second monitor stays private as long as you didn't press Win + P and pick Duplicate, which mirrors both displays.
Two Teams-specific things are worth knowing:
- The presenter toolbar is yours only. Microsoft says the toolbar at the top of a shared screen is "only visible to the person presenting", and its compact chat view isn't shown to the audience either.
- "Include sound" shares all computer audio. That includes notification chimes, so leave it off unless you're playing a video.
Sharing a window: Teams sees only that app
Choose Window and Teams captures that one app's content. Other windows, the taskbar and notifications aren't included. Modern capture on Windows grabs the window's own content, so a window you drag on top of the shared one generally isn't sent, but run a quick test with your Teams version before relying on it. (Older clients handled overlap badly: Microsoft's Lync 2010 showed attendees a black window whenever anything covered the shared program, and Zoom had a 2021 bug that briefly leaked overlapping windows.)
Window sharing has its own rough edges:
- Dialog boxes can disappear. Teams may treat a pop-up as a separate window, so an Excel dialog you're explaining might not show. Some university IT guides tell staff to share the entire screen for Excel demos for exactly this reason.
- Switching apps needs a new share. Moving from a browser to a terminal mid-demo means stopping and re-sharing.
- Full-screen windows on Mac can stop Teams from sharing other windows, according to reports on the Microsoft Tech Community. On Windows this isn't usually an issue.
The Windows 11 taskbar shortcut
Windows 11 can add a share button to taskbar thumbnails during Teams calls. Open Settings > Personalization > Taskbar > Taskbar behaviors and tick Share any window from my taskbar. Then hover over an app on the taskbar and choose Share this window. It's the fastest way to switch which window you're sharing without opening the Teams share tray.
PowerPoint Live: your notes stay private
If you're presenting slides and want your notes in front of you, don't share the PowerPoint window and squint at a notes pane. Share the PowerPoint file itself. Teams renders the slides for attendees and gives you a presenter view with notes, a slide strip and chat that only you see. A side benefit: attendees can't see your desktop at all, because Teams isn't capturing your screen.
Can Teams see apps you aren't sharing?
Not in any way that reaches other people in the meeting. Teams sends attendees your camera, your microphone and what you chose to share. There's no participant-facing feature that lists the apps you have open or alerts the organizer when you switch windows. Meeting attendance reports cover things like join time, leave time and duration.
One caution that's easy to skip. Teams isn't the only software on a work laptop. If your device is managed by your employer, IT may run separate monitoring or data loss prevention tools with their own visibility. That's governed by your company's policy, not by the share button, so read it if you're unsure.
How to keep other apps private in a Teams meeting
- Silence notifications. On Windows 11 turn on Do not disturb (Settings > System > Notifications). On Windows 10 set Focus assist to Alarms only.
- Close what you don't need. Email, personal chat and banking tabs are the usual leaks.
- Prefer Window over Screen. In the share tray, choose Window and pick the app.
- For slides, share the PowerPoint file so your notes stay in presenter view.
- If you must share the whole screen, put private windows on a second monitor and share only the first, or use a capture-excluded app (next section).
- Test once. Join the same meeting from your phone, share, and look at what the phone shows.
Need notes or an AI assistant on the same screen you're sharing? AuraCloak stays visible to you and out of the Teams share.
Get AuraCloakWhen you have to share your whole screen
Some meetings don't allow the tidy approach. You're walking a customer through three apps, or you're on a laptop with no second display, and re-sharing every minute would derail the call. That's the case Windows' WDA_EXCLUDEFROMCAPTURE flag was made for: an app that sets it on its own window is left out of every capture on Windows 10 version 2004 and later, while still appearing on your monitor (Microsoft Learn: SetWindowDisplayAffinity).
AuraCloak, our invisible AI overlay for Windows, is built on that flag. It sits on top of your other apps, and the Teams desktop app leaves it out even when you share the entire screen. You can keep talking points in it, ask an AI model about a question from the call, or open ChatGPT or Claude in browser mode with your existing login. The meetings use case shows a typical setup.
Be clear about the limits. A phone camera aimed at your screen sees it. A projector or a duplicated display shows it, because those are monitors. And on Windows builds older than 2004, viewers see a black box where the window is rather than nothing.
Teams on the web vs the desktop app
Teams in a browser works the same way for Screen and Window sharing, but Microsoft only supports screen sharing from Google Chrome or the latest Microsoft Edge on the web, and Linux isn't supported. The browser asks which screen, window or tab to share; choosing a tab is the narrowest option and keeps everything else private.
Two settings that change what others can do
Give control. From the presenter toolbar you can let another participant drive your shared screen, and attendees can click Request control, which you approve or deny. Once they have control, they can click into anything on the shared screen, not just look at it. Microsoft's advice is to give control "only to people you trust", and we'd add: switch to a single-window share first.
Mac permissions. If you're on a Mac, Teams needs screen recording permission before it can share at all, and Microsoft offers an opt-in native macOS sharing experience in which giving and taking control aren't supported. The Window versus Screen rules above are the same on both platforms; only the permission prompts differ.
FAQ
Can people in a Teams meeting see my other tabs?
Only if they're on screen while you share your entire screen or the whole browser window. If you share a single browser tab from Teams on the web, or a different app's window, your other tabs aren't sent.
Does Teams show my notifications when I share my screen?
Yes, when you share your entire screen, Windows notifications that appear on that monitor are visible to attendees. Window sharing and PowerPoint Live don't include them. Turn on Do not disturb before presenting either way.
Can the meeting organizer see which apps I have open?
No. Teams doesn't show organizers or attendees a list of your open apps or alert them when you switch windows. They see your video, hear your audio and see what you share. Employer monitoring tools on managed devices are a separate matter.
Can Teams see my second monitor?
Only if you share that monitor or set Windows to Duplicate displays. When you share Screen, Teams asks which display to share and captures just that one.
Does a Teams recording capture more than the live share?
No. A Teams meeting recording captures the meeting as attendees saw it, so it contains the same shared content, video and audio, not your private windows.