SyntaxCueDoes SyntaxCue show up when I share my screen?
Short answer: no, not by default. SyntaxCue’s hint window is excluded from screen capture on both macOS and Windows — the same way desktop notifications and other private windows stay off a shared screen. It’s a setting, and you can turn it off if you’d rather it behave like a normal window.
How it works
In Settings, there’s a checkbox: “Keep hint window out of screen share.” It’s off by default — you turn it on if you want it.
When it’s on, SyntaxCue asks the operating system to exclude its own
window from whatever is capturing your screen — a Zoom or Google Meet
share, a call recording, a screenshot tool. On macOS that’s a standard
window property (NSWindow.sharingType); on Windows it’s the equivalent
system flag (WDA_EXCLUDEFROMCAPTURE, built into Windows 10 and later).
Neither is a trick or a workaround — they’re the same platform APIs any
app can use to keep one of its own windows out of a share, the same
category of feature that keeps some apps’ notification banners or
password managers off a shared screen.
The window stays fully visible to you, on your own display. Nothing about this affects what you see — only what a screen share, recording, or screenshot captures.
Why this exists: so your own private windows — hint text, notes, anything you wouldn’t want broadcast — don’t end up in a screen share or recording just because they happened to be open. That’s useful any time you’re presenting, demoing, or on a call with your screen shared, not a scenario specific to interviews.
One honest note
Many interviews — and most proctored assessments — explicitly ask you not to use outside assistance. Using any tool, SyntaxCue included, to get answers you present as your own in a process that forbids that is dishonest, and often breaks that platform’s rules. We don’t build this feature for that, we don’t market it for that, and it ships off by default. If you’re in a process with rules like that, respect them — for the fuller version of this answer, see Is Using AI in Interviews Cheating?.
Can interviewers see the hint window during a screen share?
Not if "Keep hint window out of screen share" is turned on in Settings — the window is excluded from whatever's capturing your screen (a video call share, a recording, a screenshot). It's off by default, and you can turn it off again at any time to let the window behave like any normal window.
Does this work on both macOS and Windows?
Yes. macOS uses NSWindow's sharingType property; Windows uses the WDA_EXCLUDEFROMCAPTURE flag (available on Windows 10 and later). Both are standard operating-system window properties, not a workaround specific to SyntaxCue.
Is this feature built to hide SyntaxCue from an interviewer?
It's built around your own screen-share stream, not around another person's awareness. The window stays visible to you the whole time — the setting only changes what a screen share or recording captures. Many interviews and proctored assessments forbid outside assistance, and using any tool to get around that isn't a use we support; see Is Using AI in Interviews Cheating? for the full answer on where that line is.
Can I turn this off?
Yes — it's a checkbox in Settings, off by default, and you can switch it on or off whenever you want. There's no locked-in mode.
Does the free tier include this, or is it a paid feature?
It's part of the app, available whether or not you've activated a license — the free tier is metered by hint count, not by which settings are available.