How to hide notifications while screen recording on Mac

Every option, side by side

The setting macOS already has

Start with the setting most people never knew they had. Apple keeps it in Notifications, not Focus:

1. Open System Settings → Notifications and find the Notification Center section (you may need to scroll).
2. On macOS 26 Tahoe, next to “when mirroring or sharing the display”, choose Notifications Off. On macOS 15 Sequoia, turn off the switch “Allow notifications when mirroring or sharing the display”.

On macOS 14 Sonoma I can't quote the label: Apple's online guide for this page now starts at macOS 15, so look in the same pane. Apple's own example of why it exists is a Keynote presentation: with notifications off, others can't see them on your computer. Screen Studio's guide says the same holds for recordings, which by default keep notifications out until you turn the option on, and while building Snapline's own setting I measured it on macOS 26: at the default, the banner never came on screen while a capture ran.

So if banners turn up in your recordings, this was probably switched to allow notifications at some point. If an older article sends you to a Focus option that turns on “when mirroring the display”, that is from earlier macOS: Apple's Focus guides for macOS 14, 15 and 26 list no such trigger.

Do Not Disturb, by hand

The belt to that setting's braces:

1. Click Control Center in the menu bar, then click anywhere in the Focus section.
2. Click Do Not Disturb and choose a duration, such as “For 1 hour”, or “Until the end of this event” if the recording is on your calendar.
3. Look for the Focus icon in the menu bar: it is the sign the Focus is on. Click the Focus again in Control Center to turn it off when you are done.

Faster: hold Option and click the date and time in the menu bar to toggle Do Not Disturb, or press the Do Not Disturb key if your keyboard has one in the function row. If your Focus is kept up to date across your Apple devices, turning it on on the Mac turns it on on your iPhone too, which is either a feature or a missed call.

Make it automatic: a Focus schedule or a Shortcut

The weak point of Do Not Disturb is remembering it. Two ways to stop relying on memory:

1. A Focus schedule (macOS 14, 15 and 26). In System Settings → Focus, click Do Not Disturb (or a custom Focus: you can make up to ten, and a “Recording” Focus with nothing allowed is a good one), then click Add Schedule under Set a Schedule and choose Time, Location or App.
2. A Shortcuts automation (macOS 26). Tahoe brought personal automations to Shortcuts on the Mac. Click Automation in the sidebar, then the + button. Choose an app trigger and add the Set Focus action set to Do Not Disturb, with a duration. Run After Confirmation asks before it fires.

Read the App schedule's small print: Apple says the Focus turns off when you quit the app or switch to another app. Make your recorder the trigger and the Focus ends the moment you click into the app you are demonstrating. Use a Time schedule, or make the demonstrated app the trigger. The Shortcuts route sets a duration, so switching apps does not undo it. On macOS 14 and 15, Shortcuts on the Mac has no automations, so the schedule is the route.

What Do Not Disturb does not hide

A Focus filters notifications; it does not black out the screen. Each of these can still land in a take:

• Allowed people and apps. Whatever the Focus's Allowed People and Allowed Apps lists permit comes straight through.
• Time Sensitive notifications, if the Focus has Time Sensitive Notifications switched on and the app is allowed to send them in Notifications settings.
• Repeated calls, if Allow repeated calls is on: a second call within three minutes rings through.
• Whatever is already on screen. A Focus silences what arrives after it is on. Close anything sitting in the top right corner before you press record.
• Notification Center itself. Open it from the clock mid-take and your notification history is in the recording, Focus or not.
• The Focus icon. Turning a Focus on puts its icon in the menu bar, so a full-screen recording announces that you are in Do Not Disturb.
• Windows an app draws itself. A video call's “someone joined” toast or an updater's dialog is not a notification, and no Focus touches it.

Record a window instead

A banner is its own window. Record one window and the banner floats over it on your screen without being in the window's pixels. On macOS 26, the Screenshot toolbar (⇧⌘5) has Record a window beside Record the entire screen and Record a portion of the screen; on macOS 14 and 15 it records only the whole screen or a portion. Snapline records windows on every macOS it supports. Whatever you use, test with a banner before a take that matters.

The trade: you get only the window, so menus, popovers and a second app may be missing. A region drawn clear of the top right corner also dodges banners, until the day your subject lives in that corner.

Snapline's setting

Snapline handles the recording side with one setting, so a banner that gets past everything above still stays out of the file:

1. Open Snapline's Settings and choose Recording. In the Notifications row, Keep notification banners out of recordings is on by default (3.4.0 and later). Leave it on.
2. Press ⌥⌘R (rebindable) and record a display or a region as usual. The setting covers both, and Snapline Studio takes (Apple silicon) too.
3. Or record a window: a Snapline window recording never shows banners, with the setting on or off, because it sees no other window.

Banners that arrive during the take still appear on your screen, but not in the frames. Notification Center, opened from the clock mid-take, is left out too; desktop widgets stay in. It works from window metadata, which needs no extra permission: as each take starts, Snapline finds Notification Center's window and asks the capture to leave it out. It never moves, dismisses or answers a banner, it does not turn on Do Not Disturb or change any macOS setting, and like everything in Snapline it only reads pixels.

Its limits, plainly. It is best-effort by design: the window is left out when macOS's capture framework lists it, and a take never fails because it didn't. In the measurements behind it, on macOS 26.6.2, four 6-second display takes alternated the setting: on, 0 of 618 frames showed the banner; off, 478 of 611 did. macOS 14 and 15 have not been measured. If Notification Center relaunches mid-take, its new window is left out only from the next take. A change to the setting applies from the next recording. And it only knows Notification Center, so a window an app draws itself is recorded like any other. It matters most if you have set macOS's sharing option to allow notifications: as its help in Settings says, it keeps banners out even when that option lets them through.

Keystrokes and clicks, audio and zooming in each have a guide of their own.

Snapline is free to try in full for 14 days (after the trial, capture unlocks with a one-time license: no subscription, no account) and requires macOS 14 or later.

Troubleshooting

A banner still showed up in my recording

Work down the list: the sharing setting allowing notifications, a sender on the Focus's Allowed lists, a Time Sensitive notification, a banner already on screen, or a window an app drew itself. In Snapline, check the setting was on before the take started.

The Focus switched itself off during the take

An App schedule ends when you switch away from its app. Use a Time schedule, a manual duration, or the Shortcuts automation on macOS 26.

A system alert about screen access appeared at the start

That is macOS's screen capture reminder, not a notification, and no Focus hides it. Snapline takes it out of display and region recordings as soon as it appears, but its arrival can still reach the first frame or two: trim them, or dismiss it and record again.

Now I don't get notifications at all

Check the menu bar for a Focus icon you forgot, on the Mac or, if Focus is shared across devices, on your iPhone. Some display adapters and docks make macOS treat the screen as shared: Plugable documents this for DisplayLink, where the sharing setting holds notifications back until you allow them.

Questions

Does a Mac hide notifications automatically when you screen record?

Usually. System Settings → Notifications has an option for when you are mirroring or sharing the display, and at its default macOS holds banners back while the screen is being shared or captured. If it has been set to allow notifications (on macOS 15, the “Allow notifications when mirroring or sharing the display” switch is on), banners appear on screen and in the recording.

How do I turn off notifications when presenting or sharing my screen on a Mac?

Turn on Do Not Disturb from Control Center before you start, and leave the mirroring or sharing option in System Settings → Notifications set to keep notifications off. Do Not Disturb still lets through allowed people and apps, Time Sensitive notifications and repeated calls, so check the Focus's Allowed lists before a call that matters.

Does Do Not Disturb hide every notification?

No. It lets through whatever its Allowed People and Allowed Apps lists permit, Time Sensitive notifications if those are switched on, and repeated calls if Allow repeated calls is on. It also does nothing about a banner already on screen, Notification Center opened mid-take, or windows an app draws itself.

Does Snapline turn on Do Not Disturb while it records?

No. Snapline changes no macOS setting. With Keep notification banners out of recordings on (the default, in Settings → Recording), banners still appear on your screen during a display or region recording, but Snapline leaves Notification Center's window out of the frames.

Can I show a notification in a recording on purpose?

Yes. In Snapline, switch off Keep notification banners out of recordings in Settings → Recording; the change applies from the next recording. macOS may still hold the banner back, so also set its mirroring or sharing option in System Settings → Notifications to allow notifications, and turn off any Focus.