Blank previews, empty picker?
Window sharing fails in a handful of predictable ways, and nearly all of them come down to one thing: macOS decides what an app may capture when that app launches. Grant the permission to a running copy and nothing changes until you quit it properly.
Independent guide - not affiliated with Meta. Everything here happens in System Settings and the app itself; nothing needs to be downloaded to fix it.
Why granting the permission seems to do nothing
macOS asks an app what it wants to capture once, when the process starts, and hands it an answer that stays fixed for the life of that process. Tick the box in System Settings while Meta AI is open and the copy you are looking at carries on with the empty answer it was given at launch. Everything looks correct in Settings, and nothing works in the app.
This one quirk explains blank previews, empty window lists and the “but I already granted it” loop. Quit the app with ⌘Q - properly, not by closing the window - and reopen it.
Closing the window is not quitting. Meta AI is a menu-bar-and-panel app, so the process happily keeps running with no window on screen, and clicking the red dot leaves it exactly as it was. The same applies after an app update: the grant is attached to the app binary, so a rebuilt version can arrive in the list unticked, or ticked but not yet trusted, and needs the same quit-and-reopen afterwards.
The second surprise is that there are two permissions doing different jobs, and only one of them produces a visible error when it is missing. Screen Recording gives the app the picture. Accessibility gives it the readable text layer. Miss the second and sharing appears to work perfectly - the preview renders, the attachment chip appears - but the answers are vague, because the model is squinting at a screenshot rather than reading words. Permissions and privacy covers what each one grants beyond this feature.
The 60-second fix
In order. Steps three and four are the ones people skip, and they are the ones that usually matter.
Open the right Settings pane
System Settings → Privacy & Security → Screen & System Audio Recording. On macOS 15 it sits just below Files and Folders.
Switch Meta AI on
Not listed at all? Open the window picker in the app once so macOS adds it, then come back. An app only appears after it has asked.
Quit the app properly
⌘Q with Meta AI focused, or right-click its Dock icon and choose Quit. Closing the window does not end the process.
Reopen and try the picker
Previews should render now. If they still do not, you almost certainly closed rather than quit - check that the app is gone from the Dock and the menu bar first.
Grant Accessibility too
Privacy & Security → Accessibility. This is what supplies the text layer, and without it replies about what is on screen stay frustratingly generic.
Bring the window into view
Un-minimise it and move it to the Space you are on. Minimised and off-Space windows are not offered in the picker at all. More on what never appears.
Re-attach after you change anything
What you shared is a snapshot from the moment you shared it. Scroll the document, switch tabs or edit a cell, and you need to attach it again. How sharing actually works.
Restart the Mac if two apps disagree
Rare, but a stuck capture service is a real thing. A restart clears it, and is worth one attempt before anything more drastic. Last resort.
Still failing after all eight? The problem may not be specific to sharing - work through the general troubleshooting checklist, and check system requirements if you are not certain the Mac qualifies.
What you are seeing, and what causes it
Ten failures cover nearly every report. Three are not faults at all - they are the feature behaving as designed.
| What you see | Usual cause | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Previews are blank rectangles | Permission cached | The classic. Granted while the app was running. Quit with ⌘Q and reopen. |
| The window list is completely empty | Not granted | Screen Recording is off, or was never asked for. Turn it on, then relaunch. |
| Meta AI is not in the Settings list | Never prompted | Open the picker once to make macOS add the entry, then tick it. |
| The window you want is missing | Minimised or off-Space | Un-minimise it, bring it to the current desktop, reopen the picker. |
| It attaches but the reply ignores the content | Accessibility missing | It got a picture with no text layer. Grant Accessibility as well. |
| The preview is solid black | Protected content | DRM playback captures black for every tool on macOS. Nothing to fix. |
| Sharing “stops” when you switch apps | Working as designed | It was a snapshot, not a feed. Attach again for a current view. |
| Only the desktop wallpaper appears | Wrong target | You picked the Finder desktop rather than the app window. Choose the named window. |
| It worked yesterday, not today | Update reset the grant | The permission follows the binary. Re-tick after an update, then relaunch. Updating. |
| The permission prompt keeps reappearing | Grant not sticking | A managed Mac profile or a damaged privacy database. See last resort. |
One gives it the picture, the other gives it the words
Screen Recording is the loud one. Without it there is nothing to show: the picker is empty or the tiles are blank, and macOS puts a prompt in front of you the first time you try. You will not miss it.
Accessibility is the quiet one. It lets the app read the text macOS already exposes for assistive tools - the actual characters in the cells, the words in the email, the labels on the buttons - instead of inferring them from pixels. Nothing breaks visibly when it is missing.
If sharing looks fine but answers are woolly, Accessibility is the box you did not tick.
Both sit in System Settings → Privacy & Security, both are per-app, and both can be revoked at any time without uninstalling anything. Revoking Screen Recording turns window sharing off entirely; the chat, dictation and everything else carry on working. This is also the honest reason the app is not in the Mac App Store - a sandboxed app cannot ask for either one.
The last resort, and when it is justified
A permission that will not stick - the prompt reappearing every launch, or the toggle silently switching itself back off - usually means one of two things. On a work Mac, a configuration profile is overruling you, and no amount of clicking will win; ask whoever manages the fleet. On a personal Mac, the privacy database that stores these grants can get into a confused state, generally after a migration from another machine or a restore from backup.
The blunt cure for the second case is to clear every Screen Recording grant on the Mac and let each app ask again:
tccutil reset ScreenCapture
Run that in Terminal and every app you have ever allowed to record the screen - video callers, screenshot tools, recorders - loses the permission and will prompt you next time it needs it. That is disruptive, so treat it as a genuine last step rather than a quick try, and make sure you know which apps you will need to re-approve. Restart afterwards.
Short of that, a plain reinstall is worth one attempt, because it gives macOS a clean binary to attach the grant to: remove the app properly, download a fresh copy from Meta's own site, then grant the permissions to the new install before you do anything else with it. And if sharing is the only thing you needed, remember that the web version never had this feature at all, so nothing is lost by pasting the content in by hand while you sort it out.
Window sharing questions
Why are the window previews blank?
Almost always because Screen Recording was granted after the app had already launched. macOS decides what a process may capture when that process starts, so the running copy keeps the empty answer it was given. Quit with ⌘Q and reopen - the 60-second fix has the full order.
Why is the window I want missing from the picker?
Minimised windows, windows on a different Space or full-screen desktop, and windows belonging to another macOS user account are not offered. Un-minimise it, bring it to the desktop you are on, and reopen the picker. The full list of what never appears.
Why does the preview show a black rectangle?
Protected video playback captures as black by design. Streaming apps and DRM-protected content in a browser behave this way for every screen capture tool on macOS, not just Meta AI, and there is no setting that changes it. Ask about the surrounding page instead.
Meta AI is not listed under Screen Recording at all.
macOS only adds an app to that list once it has asked for the permission. Open the window picker in Meta AI once, let the system prompt appear, then look again. If it still is not there, check the app actually finished installing - the download guide covers the drag-to-Applications step people sometimes skip.
Why did window sharing stop working after an update?
Screen Recording grants are tied to the app binary, so a rebuilt app can land in the list unticked or need re-approving. Re-tick it, then quit and reopen. This is normal macOS behaviour and not specific to Meta AI.
Does Meta AI keep watching the window after I share it?
No. Sharing takes a snapshot of that one window at that moment, and the app has no live feed of it afterwards. If the window changes, attach it again. That is also why sharing appears to “stop” when you switch apps - there was never a stream to interrupt.
Can I use window sharing without granting Accessibility?
Partly. Screen Recording alone gives the app the picture, which is enough for layout questions, charts and general shape. Accessibility supplies the readable text layer, so without it anything text-heavy - wording, numbers in a table, a long email - gets noticeably worse answers. See the two permissions.
Closing the window is not the same as quitting?
Correct, and it trips up most people. Meta AI keeps running after you click the red dot, so the process - and its stale permission answer - survives. Use ⌘Q, or right-click the Dock icon and choose Quit, and check it has left the menu bar.
My work Mac will not let me turn the permission on.
A managed configuration profile can deny Screen Recording to apps the organisation has not approved, and the toggle will refuse to stay switched on. Nothing in the app can override that. Ask whoever manages the fleet; in the meantime the browser version works without any of these permissions.
Is there any way to share more than one window at once?
Not in the 1.0 beta. One window per attachment, chosen by you each time, which is a deliberate limit rather than an oversight - the app never gets a view of your whole desktop. If you need two things compared, share the more complicated one and paste the other into the chat.
Grant it, then quit it properly.
Nine times out of ten that is the whole fix. The permission is read when the app launches, not while it runs.
Independent guide - not affiliated with Meta. Everything on this page is done in System Settings and the app itself; if you need to reinstall, the installer comes only from Meta's official site.