Share a whole display and yes, they show. Windows composites a notification banner on top of whatever is underneath it, so the sender name and the first line of the message go into the stream along with everything else on that desktop. Share a single window instead and the same banner lands outside the capture, because it is a different window. Teams will usually quiet its own alerts while you present, and it does nothing whatsoever about Outlook, Slack, Discord, Steam or Windows itself.
What Teams silences by itself, and what it leaves running
When you start sharing, Teams generally flips your presence to Presenting and holds back its own banners for the duration. That is genuinely useful, and it is also narrow. It covers Teams chat messages, mentions and the incoming Teams call popup. It covers nothing else on the machine.
So the alerts that actually ruin interviews are the ones Teams was never going to touch. A Slack direct message. A calendar reminder fifteen minutes before your next thing. The Windows Update restart prompt. A battery warning at twenty percent, an antivirus renewal nag, a Steam friend coming online. Recent builds also expose this as an explicit notification setting rather than leaving it silent, and the wording moves between versions, so read your own client's Settings rather than a screenshot from somewhere else.
The pre-interview checklist for Windows 11, in order
Run it from the top. Each step closes a different class of interruption, and the last one makes most of the earlier ones redundant, which is exactly why it sits last.
Set your Teams presence to Do not disturb, then read the priority access list
Click your profile picture, open the presence menu, choose Do not disturb. Then open Settings, Privacy, and look at Manage priority access. Stops: Teams chat banners, mention banners, the incoming Teams call popup. Does not stop: anyone on that priority access list, who is let through by design. People add a manager to it once and forget for a year, so read it rather than assuming it is empty.
Turn on the Windows Do not disturb toggle
Settings, System, Notifications, the switch at the top. The fast route is Windows key + N to open the notification centre, then the bell icon there. Stops: banner toasts from anything routed through the Windows notification system, which on default settings includes Chrome and Edge site notifications from Gmail, Calendar and LinkedIn. Does not stop: priority notifications, alarms, and anything that is an ordinary window rather than a toast.
Empty the priority notifications list underneath it
In the same Notifications panel, expand Set priority notifications. Calls and reminders are permitted to break through Do not disturb, along with any app you or an installer added. Stops: the specific surprise of switching Do not disturb on and still getting a banner. Untick calls and reminders, clear the app list. This is the step people skip before deciding the feature is broken.
Start a focus session rather than settling for Do not disturb
Settings, System, Focus, then Start focus session, with the timer set longer than the interview slot. Stops: everything Do not disturb stops, plus the unread count badges on taskbar icons and the flashing of a taskbar button demanding attention. That gap matters: Do not disturb leaves those badges climbing in full view, and on a full display share a badge reading 14 beside a mail icon is a live readout of what you are ignoring. Press Windows key + N and Clear all while you are there.
Quit the apps that do not use Windows notifications at all
Close classic Outlook, Slack, Discord, Steam and any vendor tray utility. Stops: the popups that are immune to every setting above. A classic Outlook reminder is a normal window, not a toast, so Do not disturb never sees it, and it takes keyboard focus when it opens, so it can also swallow the line you were typing into a code editor.
Close the chat pop-out and anything else you popped out today
A popped-out meeting chat, or a direct message you popped out this morning, is a real window on your desktop with real names and real message text in it. Stops: chat content appearing in a full display share, and the reflex of glancing sideways at it mid-answer. If your build shows recent meeting messages as bubbles over the meeting stage, switch those off before you share.
Choose Window, not Screen, in the share tray
Share content, then pick the specific application window instead of a display thumbnail. Stops: nearly all of the above at once. Teams on current Windows builds captures that window's own pixels, so a toast, a dialog or a pop-out that lands on top of it is not in the frame. Trade-off: cover or minimise the shared window and viewers can be left on a stale frame, and anything drawn inside it is still shared. If you genuinely need a whole display, make the monitor you are not sharing the main display in Settings, System, Display, because Windows draws toasts on the primary one.
What each control actually stops
| Control | Stops | Leaves alone |
|---|---|---|
| Teams presence set to Do not disturb | Teams chat and mention banners, the incoming Teams call popup | Every other application on the machine, plus your priority access contacts |
| Windows Do not disturb | Banner toasts from any app using the Windows notification system, including most browser site notifications | Priority notifications, alarms, taskbar badges, popups that are ordinary windows |
| Priority notifications list emptied | Calls and reminders punching through Do not disturb | Anything that was never a toast to begin with |
| Focus session | All of the above, plus taskbar unread badges and flashing taskbar buttons | Outlook reminder windows, vendor overlays, update prompts |
| Closing chat pop-outs | Message text and contact names sitting visible in a full display share | Toasts, which arrive whether or not a window is open |
| Sharing a window instead of a screen | Every toast, pop-out, dialog and stray window, because none of them are inside the captured window | Content drawn inside the shared window itself, such as an in-page alert on a web app |
The ones that get through anyway
Three categories survive a correctly configured Do not disturb, and all three are ordinary windows wearing a notification costume.
- Dialogs, not toasts. A classic Outlook reminder, a Windows Update restart prompt, a printer asking for attention, a VPN client reconnecting, an antivirus renewal box. These are windows. The notification settings do not govern them.
- Overlays with their own rules. Steam, Discord, GeForce Experience and Xbox Game Bar paint themselves over the desktop and answer to their own preferences, not to the Windows notification panel.
- The taskbar. Unread badges, a jumping icon, the count on the notification bell, and the preview thumbnail that pops up when your pointer drifts across a taskbar button on the way to something else.
Share a window and none of that reaches the stream. Share a display and all of it can.
Where this advice runs out
Teams reshuffles its share tray and settings layout often, and this page describes the desktop client on Windows 11. In a browser the picker belongs to Chrome or Edge rather than to Teams, with its own quirks. Where your client disagrees with this page, trust your client.
One honest note about our own product, since this question often arrives attached to it. The OfferPilot AI overlay is excluded from screen capture at the operating system level, so it is absent from a Teams share and from recordings while staying visible on your own monitor, on every plan including the free one. That exclusion applies to our overlay and to nothing else. It does not hide your notification banners, your Outlook reminders or your taskbar badges, which is precisely why the checklist above is still your job. It also does nothing about a webcam, a lockdown browser, a proctoring agent or a person in the room with you, and it is Windows 10 and 11 only, so on a Mac none of it applies. For a monitored, proctored assessment it is the wrong tool, and we would rather say so plainly.
The short version
- A full display share puts your banners in the stream. Sender name and message preview included, because Windows draws them onto the desktop you are capturing.
- Window share is the single strongest fix. One choice in the share tray removes toasts, pop-outs and dialogs from the frame together.
- Do not disturb is not one switch. Teams presence, the Windows toggle, the priority list and a focus session each cover a different slice, and the popups that are not toasts need the app closed.
Two minutes of setup before the call beats explaining a message preview to an interviewer who has already read it.
Related guides
- How to Hide Notifications While Screen Sharing on Windows 11
- Webex Share Application vs Share Screen (and Share a Portion)
- Microsoft Teams Share Window vs Share Screen: What Others See
- How to Test Screen Share Before a Meeting: A Solo Rehearsal
- How Apps Hide From Screen Sharing on Windows (and the Limits)