🔒 KWin Hide from Screencast

Backport of KDE Plasma 6.6's "Hide from Screencast" feature to KWin 6.3.x.

Allows you to exclude specific windows from screen sharing and recording - perfect for keeping sensitive information private during video calls, streaming, or screen recordings.

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📸 Screenshots

Menu Access	Option

🎬 Demo

✨ Features

• Hide any window from screen capture - Right-click → More Actions → Hide from Screencast
• Automatic propagation - Child windows (dialogs, popups) inherit the exclusion setting
• Zero performance impact - Fast path when no windows are excluded
• Works with all screen sharing tools - OBS, Discord, Google Meet, Zoom, etc.

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📋 Requirements

• KDE Plasma 6.3.x (tested on 6.3.6)
• Wayland session
• Build dependencies for KWin (see installation)

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🚀 Installation

Option 1: Apply Patch (Recommended)

# 1. Clone this repository
git clone https://github.com/henriquejsza/kwin-hide-from-screencast.git
cd kwin-hide-from-screencast

# 2. Download KWin source (match your version)
git clone https://invent.kde.org/plasma/kwin.git kwin-src
cd kwin-src
git checkout v6.3.6  # or your version

# 3. Apply the patch
git apply ../kwin-hide-from-screencast.patch

# 4. Install build dependencies (Arch/Manjaro)
sudo pacman -S --needed extra-cmake-modules wayland-protocols plasma-wayland-protocols \
    qt6-base qt6-wayland kf6-kconfigwidgets kf6-ki18n kf6-kglobalaccel \
    kdecoration kscreenlocker breeze

# 5. Build
mkdir build && cd build
cmake .. -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
make -j$(nproc)

# 6. Install
sudo make install

# 7. Restart KWin
# Option A: Toggle compositor (Alt+Shift+F12 twice)
# Option B: Logout/Login
# Option C: Reboot

Option 2: Manual Installation

See MANUAL_INSTALL.md for step-by-step file modifications.

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📖 Usage

1. Right-click on any window's title bar
2. Go to More Actions → Hide from Screencast
3. The window will now be excluded from all screen captures

The setting persists for the session. Child windows (dialogs, pop-ups) automatically inherit the setting.

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🔧 How It Works

This patch modifies KWin's screencast plugin to implement custom offscreen rendering:

1. New Window Property: Adds excludeFromCapture property to the Window class
2. UI Integration: Adds menu item in window context menu under "More Actions"
3. Screencast Filter: When capturing, checks for excluded windows and renders a filtered scene

Files Modified

File	Changes
src/options.h	Added ExcludeFromCaptureOp enum
src/window.h/cpp	Added excludeFromCapture property
src/useractions.h/cpp	Added menu item and handler
src/workspace.h	Added slot declaration
src/scripting/workspace_wrapper.h/cpp	Added scripting support
src/plugins/screencast/outputscreencastsource.cpp	Added filtered rendering
src/plugins/screencast/regionscreencastsource.cpp	Added filtered rendering

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⚠️ Rollback

To restore the original KWin:

# Arch/Manjaro
sudo pacman -S kwin

# Then reboot or restart KWin

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🤝 Contributing

This is a backport patch. The feature is available natively in KDE Plasma 6.6+.

For the official implementation, see:

• KDE Invent MR !8442

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📄 License

GPL-2.0-or-later (same as KWin)

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🙏 Credits

• Henrique José de Souza (@henriquejsza) - Backport implementation and custom screencast filter
• KDE Team - Original implementation in Plasma 6.6