Fix Safari screen sharing on Google Meet and Microsoft Teams

You click Present in Meet or the share button in Teams, and Safari hands you a black preview window or an empty screen list. Nothing is wrong with the meeting itself.

Safari has two permission layers to clear: the per-site Screen Sharing rule inside Safari, and Screen & System Audio Recording for Safari in macOS System Settings. Turn both on, then quit Safari completely and reopen it before you rejoin the call.

In this guide, I have covered:

Why Safari won’t share your screen on Meet or Teams

You click Present in Google Meet, or the share button in Microsoft Teams, and nothing happens. A black preview window opens, the spinner hangs, or no screens are listed at all. That is almost never a Meet or Teams bug.

Safari has to clear two separate permission layers before it can capture anything. Safari itself decides whether the current site (meet.google.com or teams.microsoft.com) may ask for screen capture. Then macOS decides whether Safari as an app may capture the screen at all.

Deny either layer and the share button fails quietly. Camera and microphone work the same way, and both need to be on before the meeting even reaches the share controls. Flip both layers, then fully quit and reopen Safari.

Allow screen sharing for the site you’re on

Start with the per-site panel in Safari. It only affects the site you have open right now, so nothing global changes.

1. In Safari, open meet.google.com or teams.microsoft.com and sign in to the meeting.
2. Click the tune button at the left of the address bar, then choose Settings for This Website.
3. Find Screen Sharing in the panel and set the dropdown to Ask. Apple’s permission table only lists Ask and Deny for Screen Sharing.
4. Repeat for Camera and Microphone. Both let you pick Allow so the meeting can join before you present.

Reload the meeting tab with Cmd+R if the change did not take effect on the first try. To audit every site’s saved permissions at once, see our view site permissions in Safari on Mac walkthrough.

The dropdown for Screen Sharing only shows Ask and Deny in current versions of Safari. The Allow decision is captured when you click the prompt Safari surfaces during the meeting itself.

Set the default for every other website

You only need this one if new meeting sites keep landing on Deny. The global rule covers any site you have not opened yet.

1. Open the Safari menu and choose Settings (or Preferences on older builds).
2. Click the Websites tab at the top of the window.
3. Select Screen Sharing in the left column.
4. In the “When visiting other websites” pop-up at the bottom, choose Ask.

Camera, Microphone, Auto-Play, and the rest of the list work the same way while you are in this pane. The Websites pane is also where you allow downloads from specific sites, and the Safari downloads permission guide walks through that one.

Grant macOS Screen & System Audio Recording to Safari

In-Safari permission alone is not enough. macOS blocks the capture if Safari is not on its own allow list, and that list lives in System Settings, not in Safari.

1. Click the Apple menu in the top-left corner of the screen and choose System Settings.
2. Choose Privacy & Security from the sidebar.
3. Scroll down and click Screen & System Audio Recording.
4. Toggle the switch next to Safari to on.
5. If Microsoft Teams appears in the list, toggle it on too. Only Safari is required for Meet.
6. Click the Safari menu and choose Quit Safari (or press Cmd+Q) so the new permission takes effect.

On macOS Ventura and earlier the same pane is labeled Screen Recording under Privacy & Security, and the toggle behaves identically. Apple renamed it starting with macOS Sonoma. Apple’s controlling screen and audio recording guide for Mac documents the new wording.

If the toggles are dimmed, click the padlock in the lower-left of the pane, authenticate with your Mac password or Touch ID, then come back and turn Safari on.

Turn on Camera and Microphone access for Safari

Screen sharing also fails when the meeting cannot join in the first place, and it cannot join if Camera or Microphone is denied. Confirm both before you blame the share button.

1. Stay in Privacy & Security, then click Camera in the list on the right.
2. Toggle Safari on (and toggle Microsoft Teams on if you use the desktop app).
3. Click the back button and choose Microphone, then toggle Safari on there as well.
4. If the toggles are dimmed, click the padlock , authenticate, and try again.

If Safari is missing from either list, open Safari and visit any site that asks for camera or microphone permission. macOS adds the app the first time a request fires.

Relaunch Safari and try the meeting again

macOS only applies the new Screen & System Audio Recording permission on the next launch. A reload inside the same window is not enough.

1. Quit Safari completely with Cmd+Q, then reopen it from the Dock or Applications folder.
2. Open meet.google.com or teams.microsoft.com, join or rejoin the call, and click Present now (Meet) or the share button (Teams).
3. Pick the window, browser tab, or screen you want to show, then click Share or Allow when Safari asks.
4. If Safari surfaces its own prompt asking “Allow meet.google.com to use Screen Sharing?”, click Allow.

The preview should show your chosen screen or tab within a couple of seconds. If it does, you are done. If the preview stays black or only audio comes through, work through the fixes below.

TIP: macOS applies any privacy change to Safari only on the next launch. Always quit with Cmd+Q and reopen Safari after turning on a permission.

RELATED: Clear Site and Browsing Data from Safari browser on Mac

What to try if screen sharing still will not work

Safari still refuses to share after both the per-site rule and the macOS toggle are on? Walk through these in order. Most people stop at the first or second one.

On macOS Ventura and earlier, accept the one-time prompt

The first time a site asks for screen capture on older macOS releases, the system shows a one-time dialog that says “Safari would like to record the screen.” Click Open System Preferences from that dialog, finish the permission there, then return to the meeting.

Disable Safari extensions that touch the page

Content blockers and privacy extensions sometimes replace or hide the share dialog Meet and Teams open. Open the Safari menu, choose Settings, click the Extensions tab, and uncheck every extension. Restart Safari, join the call again, and if sharing works, re-enable extensions one at a time.

Test in a private window

Press Cmd+Shift+N in Safari to open a new Private Window, sign in to Meet or Teams there, and try sharing. If it works in Private but not in your normal session, the difference is one of your extensions or a leftover site rule.

Reset Meet or Teams stored website data

Stuck permission state clears with the Manage Website Data tool. Open the Safari menu, choose Settings, click the Privacy tab, then click Manage Website Data. Search for google.com or microsoft.com, select the matching entries, and click Remove. Quit and reopen Safari before retrying the call.

Compare against Chrome or Edge

Test the same meeting in Chrome or Edge to confirm the problem is Safari-specific. Google’s Meet supported browsers page and Microsoft’s Teams supported browsers page both still list Safari, so the per-site permission path above remains the fix to try first.

Restart the Mac

If the screen capture prompt is completely silent and the toggle is on, sign out of your user account or restart the Mac. macOS occasionally caches a denial across Safari sessions until the user session itself resets.