A lot of organizations and schools use Google Meet to conduct online meetings and teaching sessions. But video meetings aren’t always enough. A lot of the times you need to be able to share a lot more like presentations, some quick documents, or apps from your computer. These instances make you wish the person was in front of you so you could just show them your screen.

Well, you can show or, rather share your screen on Google Meet with other meeting participants, and that too without any additional requirements. Google Meet lets you present your complete screen, a Chrome tab, or an application window – it’s entirely up to you – with people in the meeting very easily. It’s the perfect little tool whether you need to give presentations, share projects, or train new employees remotely. It opens a whole new world of possibilities in remote working.

How to Present During a Meeting

You can present your screen during an ongoing video meeting, or you can join the meeting only to present. To present during an ongoing meeting, go to meet.google.com in your browser, and click on ‘Join or start a meeting’ button. Either enter a meeting code to join a meeting or create a Google Meet and invite others to join. When the meeting room is ready, click on the ‘Join now’ button.

Now, in the meeting, click on the ‘Present Now’ button at the bottom right corner of the screen.

A context menu will appear with options to present ‘Your entire screen’, ‘A window’, or ‘A chrome tab’. Select the option accordingly. While sharing Chrome tabs, you can also switch between tabs while presenting.

Note: It’s better to choose either a window or a chrome tab when you need to share only from a specific app or website instead of the whole screen while presenting to prevent any leak of sensitive information.

A pop-up box will appear based on what you selected.

  • A window: If you choose the window option, the box will list your active windows available for sharing.
  • A Chrome tab: If you choose the chrome tab, a list of all your open Google Chrome tabs will appear.
  • Your entire screen: If you chose to share your entire screen, it will display a single screen.

Select the option from the pop-up box that you want to share and then click on the ‘Share’ button to start sharing.

The window/ tab you chose will open on the screen and participants in the meeting will be able to see your screen. When it’s finished, click on ‘Stop Presenting’ button on Google Meet to end the screen-sharing session.

The chrome tab that you are sharing will also show a ‘Sharing this tab to meet.google.com’ message so you will know which tab you are sharing currently.

To change or switch a tab while presenting, go to the tab you want to start sharing, then click on the ‘Share this tab instead’ option below the address bar.

You can also click on the ‘Stop’ button on the tab you are sharing to end the screen-sharing session without having to go to Google Meet.

How to Join a Meeting Only to Present?

You can also join the meeting only to present. When you do this, you will not be part of the meeting and won’t receive any audio or video from other people, and other people in the meeting won’t receive yours. You will only be able to share your screen, application window, or a Chrome tab.

To join the meeting only to present, go to meet.google.com and enter the meeting code to join the meeting. After reaching the ‘Meeting ready’ page, click on ‘Present’ button instead of ‘Join now’.

After you’ve entered the meeting, a pop-up box will appear where you can choose what you want to share. Choose either a Chrome tab, or an application window, or your entire screen based on your requirements and then, click on the ‘Share’ button at the bottom of the box.

What If Someone Is Already Presenting?

If someone in the meeting is already presenting, you can take over the screen from them and start sharing your screen instead. When someone else is presenting, the ‘Present Now’ option will be replaced by ‘<person name> is presenting’. Click on it.

After you select what you want to share, and click the share option, another pop-up box will appear on the screen stating that ‘This will let you take over from <person name> as the main presenter’. Click on ‘Share now’ to start presenting, or ‘Cancel’ to wait for them to end their presentation.

When you click on ‘Share now’, the other person’s presentation will stop and they will receive the message that someone else took over.

When you are working or teaching remotely on Google Meet, in addition to hosting virtual meetings or classes, the service also lets you share your screen with the meeting participants. So, even in a remote setting, you can easily give presentations, or train employees, or students using the ‘Present’ feature in Google Meet.