Zoom: Grey Boxes Obstructing Window While Screen-Sharing

A guide to dealing with grey boxes obstructing the window while screen-sharing on Zoom.

Other participants may report seeing grey boxes obscuring the screen while you are screen sharing. These grey boxes are the windows for your Zoom controls and chat. This can be fixed by changing your screen sharing settings. Follow these steps to fix the problem:

  1. Click the green Share button in the control panel.

    Zoom bottom screen with buttons. Highlighted in green is Share Screen.

  2. In the pop-up window, deselect Optimize for sharing video.

    Zoom share screen.

  3. Select the window you want to share, and click the blue Share button in the lower right hand corner.

Keywords:
"What does this mean?" "Why am I getting?" "How to get rid of" Zoom Meeting, grey box
Doc ID:
129234
Owned by:
iSchool U. in School of Information Sciences
Created:
2023-06-21
Updated:
2025-07-07
Sites:
University of Illinois School of Information Sciences