ctrlhq

CloakingExperimental

Share your screen. Minus the apps you'd rather not.

Pick the apps the call should never see. You still see them; everyone else sees your screen without them.

Buy ctrlhq · Launch price, regularly $29: $24.99Launch price, regularly ₹1,999: ₹1,499

One-time purchase, lifetime updates

Already bought? Download

Sharing your whole screen is quick, and it's also how a call ends up reading your messages. One banner, one Dock badge, one stray window, and everyone has seen it.

Cloaking gives the call its own copy of your screen with the apps you pick taken out. You keep working with everything in front of you. The people watching see your screen without Messages, Slack or whatever else you've hidden.

What you get

  • You still see everything

    Hidden apps stay right where they are on your screen. Only the share leaves them out.

  • Pick the apps

    Messages, Mail, Slack, WhatsApp and 1Password are hidden to start. Add any app you have, or remove one.

  • Notifications too

    Banners and Notification Center stay out of the share, so a message arriving mid-demo isn't on everyone's screen.

  • No giveaways

    The Dock (with its badges) is hidden, a hidden app's Stage Manager thumbnail and icon go, and the menu bar is blanked while a hidden app is in front.

  • On when the call starts

    Turn on Cloak automatically and it starts when Zoom, Meet, Teams, FaceTime or Slack picks up your mic, then turns off once the call ends.

  • Stays on your Mac

    Nothing is recorded or uploaded. macOS hands the screen to ctrlhq frame by frame, ctrlhq draws it into one window, and that's all.

How it works

  1. 1Open Settings › Cloaking and check the apps you want hidden.
  2. 2Switch on Cloak my screen. Your screen looks exactly the same.
  3. 3In Zoom, Meet or Teams, share a window instead of your whole screen, and pick “ctrlhq Cloak”.

How Cloaking works

  1. 1

    A live copy of your screen

    ctrlhq uses Apple's screen capture (the same one meeting apps use) to copy your display about 30 times a second, with the apps you picked left out before anything is drawn.

  2. 2

    Drawn into one window

    That copy goes into a window called “ctrlhq Cloak”. It sits behind all your other windows, lined up exactly with your desktop, and lets clicks pass through, so you never notice it.

  3. 3

    You share that window

    Meeting apps can share a single window even when other windows cover it. Share “ctrlhq Cloak” and the call gets your full screen, live, without the hidden apps.

  4. 4

    The giveaways are covered

    Some traces of an app are drawn by macOS, not the app: its Dock icon and badge, its Stage Manager icon and the menu bar naming it. Cloaking leaves those out of the copy too.

If you share your entire screen instead of the ctrlhq Cloak window, the call sees everything, hidden apps included. Cloaking only covers the share that comes from its window.

Questions

Why share a window and not my screen?

A whole-screen share comes straight from macOS, so nothing can be taken out of it. The ctrlhq Cloak window is a copy of your screen with the hidden apps already removed, so sharing it is what keeps them out.

Which call apps work?

Any that can share a single window: Google Meet, Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Slack huddles and others. Pick “ctrlhq Cloak” from the window list.

Is there a delay?

About one frame. The copy is drawn straight from macOS on the graphics chip, at up to 30 frames a second.

What does it need?

macOS 26 and Screen Recording permission for ctrlhq, which macOS asks for the first time you turn it on.

Does it work with more than one display?

It cloaks the display your notch is on. Share from that one.

Is ctrlhq itself hidden?

Yes. ctrlhq is always left out of the copy, like it's left out of screen shares and recordings by default.

Why is it experimental?

It works, and it's new. It leans on how each call app captures a window, so we want more hours on it across Zoom, Meet and Teams before calling it done.

Also in the notch

All features

Cloaking, and everything else.

Every feature is in one app, for one price: $24.99₹1,499 once, no subscription.

Buy ctrlhq · Launch price, regularly $29: $24.99Launch price, regularly ₹1,999: ₹1,499

One-time purchase, lifetime updates

Already bought? Download

macOS 26 Tahoe or later · Apple silicon & Intel