Running a software training session on Zoom from a Mac

27 October 2026 · 6 min read

To run a software training session on Zoom from a Mac, share your whole screen rather than one app’s window, make text and the pointer larger than you would for yourself, and slow down to a show-then-do pace. Then make the invisible parts visible: say every shortcut aloud and put your keys and clicks on screen, so people following along on their own Macs can copy you exactly. Record the session, because some of them will want to watch the tricky part again.

Before the session

A few minutes of setup saves the first ten minutes of the session.

Screen Recording permission. macOS will not let Zoom share your screen without it. Zoom asks the first time. If you turned it down, go to System Settings > Privacy & Security > Screen Recording (called Screen & System Audio Recording in macOS 15 and later), turn Zoom on, then quit and reopen Zoom.
Notifications. Turn on Do Not Disturb from Control Center. That is the dependable switch: System Settings > Notifications also has Allow notifications when mirroring or sharing the display, worth turning off, but do not count on macOS treating every app’s screen share as sharing the display. A chat preview from a colleague is not part of the course.
A clean screen. Quit the apps you will not use. Option-Command-H (⌥⌘H) hides every app except the one in front.
Size. Trainees watch your screen in a Zoom window, often on a laptop, often beside the app they are working in, so everything you share is scaled down. Pick a resolution toward Larger Text in System Settings > Displays, zoom the app you are teaching if it can zoom, and turn up Pointer size in System Settings > Accessibility > Display.
A test call. Join from a second device, share your screen, and look at it the way trainees will.

Share the screen, not a window

Zoom’s share picker offers your whole screen and each open window. For training, pick the screen.

Software training rarely stays in one window. You open a dialog, switch to the browser to sign in, drag a file from the Finder, show a setting in System Settings. If you share a single window, trainees see only that window. Anything else that appears on your screen, from another app’s dialog to an on-screen keyboard showing your keys, never reaches them, and they are left looking at a window that no longer matches what you describe.

If you have two displays, share the one you teach on and keep your notes and the Zoom chat on the other. During a meeting, Command-Shift-S (⇧⌘S) starts and stops sharing in Zoom. Show the keys you press while screen sharing in Zoom or Meet has more on what a share includes.

Set a pace people can follow

A training session is not a demo. In a demo people watch; in training they have to do it themselves, on their own Mac, while watching yours.

Show, then do. Do each step once at normal speed while you explain it. Then stop and let everyone do it in their own copy of the app. Ask people to use Zoom’s Raise Hand when they are done (in recent versions it sits under Reactions), and wait for most of the hands.
Name both routes. Say the menu path and the shortcut together: “Edit, then Select All, or Command-A.” People who forget the shortcut can still find the menu.
Say what you click. “Right-click the file” or “hold Option and drag” sounds obvious, but on a shared screen a right click looks exactly like a left click.
Post the steps. Paste each step in the chat as you go, or send a written list afterwards. Anyone who falls behind can catch up without stopping everyone.
Check in on purpose. After anything with more than a couple of steps, stop and ask who is stuck. A quiet call often means people are busy or lost, not finished.

Make every key and click visible

This is where most screen-shared training loses people. A shortcut changes your screen in an instant and leaves no trace, and a click with a modifier held looks like any other click. Zoom shows your pointer and nothing about the keys.

Saying shortcuts aloud is the free fix, and worth doing whatever else you use. On screen, Typebar covers the rest:

Keys. Every key you press lights up on an on-screen keyboard, and the pill names each shortcut with the name it has in the app’s own menus. In training that matters: the name on screen is the one trainees find when they open the same menu in their copy.
Clicks. Clicks show in the pill as Click, Right Click or ⌘ Click, and click ripples give left, right and middle clicks their own shape where they land. A cursor halo keeps the pointer easy to find on a busy screen.
Spotlight. Pointer Spotlight dims everything except a circle around the pointer. Press its shortcut to turn it on and off, or hold the shortcut to show it only while you hold it, which suits “this button, here” moments. Spotlight the pointer during a presentation on a Mac covers when it helps.
Auto-show. In Settings > Recording, turn on Show when a screen recording starts. Screen sharing counts too, so Typebar appears by itself when you start sharing and hides when you stop.

Because the board and pill are on your screen, they reach trainees through the share like any window. Nobody has to install anything.

Typebar’s cheatsheets help in the questions part of a session. Hold a modifier such as Command for a moment and the keys relabel with what they do in the app in front, which answers “what else can I do from here?” without leaving the app. You can export a sheet as a PNG or PDF and send it with the session notes.

Training often includes signing in, so check the privacy side too. When a password field is marked secure, nothing typed shows, and the same goes while 1Password, Bitwarden, Keychain Access or Passwords is in front. For a sign-in box that is not marked secure, Hide letters turns letters into dots while shortcuts still show, and Pause stops everything until you resume. Show keys in a recording without leaking a password goes through it.

Record the session

Zoom can record a meeting on your Mac or in the cloud, depending on your account. Start it from the Record button in the meeting controls, and tell people at the start that you are recording. The recording captures what you share, so the keys, clicks and spotlight are in it too.

A local recording is converted after the meeting ends, so give Zoom time to finish before you shut the Mac.

As a backup, you can record with macOS itself: press Command-Shift-5 (⇧⌘5), choose Record Entire Screen, and pick your microphone under Options. Its sound comes only from that microphone, so trainees’ voices are in it only as far as the microphone hears them, which makes it a fallback rather than a final video.

Before you send the recording out, cut the waiting at the start and end. In QuickTime Player, Edit > Trim (Command-T) is enough for that.

Questions

Why can’t trainees see my on-screen keyboard?

You are most likely sharing one app’s window. Stop sharing and share the whole screen instead.

Do trainees need to install anything?

No. The keys and clicks are drawn on your screen and reach them through the share.

Does the same apply to Google Meet or Microsoft Teams?

Yes. Share the entire screen rather than a window or a browser tab, and the rest of this setup works the same way.

Will my password show while I sign in?

Not in a field macOS marks as secure, and not while a password manager on Typebar’s list is in front. For anything else, use Hide letters or Pause.

Typebar is $9 once for up to five Macs, with a free 24-hour trial, and runs on macOS 14 Sonoma or later.