Screen-Capture Protection: Keep Your Vault Out of Screen Shares

What is screen-capture protection?

Many leaks are accidents. You share your screen on a call with a vault window open in the background. Someone screenshots your desktop for a bug report. The app sets the window sharing type of every vault window to none, which tells macOS not to let other programs read that window's contents.

The setting is a request. It is not a lock on the screen. Other apps decide whether to respect it, which is why this page spends as much time on the limits as on how it works.

How it works, step by step

1. Window setting

   Each window that can show vault content has its sharing type set to none through the standard AppKit window API.

2. On screenshots

   The window is left out of captures that respect the setting. The lock screen's pattern grid window is excluded too.

3. On screen sharing

   Call and recording apps that respect the setting see no vault window. What your own display shows is not changed.

Which windows it covers

The spec says the setting applies to every vault window, and it names the lock screen grid. It does not list the other windows one by one. The menu-bar extra shows the lock state, a "Lock Now" button and a drop zone. The spec does not say whether that counts as a vault window.

What it does not protect against

Treat this as a seatbelt, not a vault door.

• A camera pointed at your screen. No software can stop a phone photo.
• Capture methods that ignore the window setting. macOS decides what it enforces, and behaviour can differ between versions and capture tools. Test with the tool you use before relying on it.
• Someone looking over your shoulder.
• Malware with screen-recording permission, if it finds a way around the setting.
• Files you export. Export is the only way out of the vault. An exported file is an ordinary file that any app can show.
• Originals left in Photos. After an import, the app asks whether to delete the originals. Until you do, they stay visible in the Photos app.

What Apple engineers have said

Two threads on Apple's developer forums show why testing matters. In a July 2024 thread, a developer asked why a window with its sharing state set to none could still be recorded. An Apple engineer replied that the setting works at the window level. The engineer wrote that most screen recording and remote control apps work below that level, so the setting has no effect on them. The engineer also knew of no good way for an app to stop its content from being captured.

A thread from November 2025 shows capture tools disagreeing. A developer reported that a ScreenCaptureKit sample left out an app that used this setting, while QuickTime recorded the same app. An Apple engineer asked for a bug report. The thread does not say which macOS versions were involved.

The spec lists screen sharing among the things Hidden Folder protects against. This page treats that as a goal, not a result.

How to test it yourself

1. Open a vault and show a photo. Use a test photo, not a private one.
2. Take a screenshot of the whole screen with ⇧⌘3. Apple lists it as the shortcut for a picture of the entire screen. Take another of a selected part with ⇧⌘4. Open both files and check whether the vault window is missing, black or visible.
3. Start a call with a friend or a second device. Share your whole screen, not one window. Ask what they see.
4. Record your screen with the recorder you use. Play the file back.
5. Repeat all of this after each macOS update, because behaviour can change.

Getting it right

• Lock the vault with ⌘L before you share your screen.
• Test with a screenshot and your video-call app before you rely on it.
• Close the vault window while presenting if you want certainty.
• Share one window instead of the whole screen when your call app allows it.
• The screen sharing scenario has a longer pre-call checklist. Before you send a photo, blur a detail with the blur tool or read how to hide photos on a Mac.

Open questions

• A switch. The spec lists no setting to turn protection off. Whether one ships is not decided.
• A sign that it is on. The spec does not mention a badge or indicator in the toolbar.
• Behaviour on each macOS release. It depends on Apple's capture tools, which the forum threads above show can differ.
• Accessibility tools. The spec does not discuss how the setting interacts with them.