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When you share your screen during a therapy session, your face matters. A client watching a safety plan, an EMDR target image, or a worksheet shouldn’t lose sight of you in the same moment you’re handing them something emotionally weighted. Rivet’s screen share keeps your camera visible to the client as a corner tile throughout the share. This is the single most important way Rivet’s video differs from generic meeting tools.

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How it works

When you tap Share Screen in the toolbar, a small picker appears with two choices:
  • Share Screen — opens your browser’s native screen picker (Chrome, Safari, Firefox each have their own). You pick a window, a tab, or your whole screen. The share starts.
  • Whiteboard — mounts the in-session whiteboard instead of a real screen share. See Whiteboard.
When the share is live, the client’s view becomes:
Both your camera and your shared content reach the client at the same time. The client’s screen shows the shared content in the main stage and your face in the corner. Your own view stays mostly the same — you see the client’s video as the main stage, your own camera and a small preview of what you’re sharing.

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Why your face stays visible when you share

In Zoom, Meet, and most generic meeting tools (until very recently), when the host shares their screen, the host’s camera is replaced by the shared content. The client sees the screen but loses the host’s face entirely for the duration of the share. For a therapist sharing a safety plan with a client in crisis, that’s not ideal. For an EMDR session sharing a target image, it can be actively counterproductive — EMDR depends on the therapist’s continuous co-regulating presence and clients can read the disappearance as withdrawal. Rivet adds the screen while keeping your camera running. Your client sees both.

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When your client shares

Your client can share their screen with you as well. They’ll see the same Share Screen button in their toolbar, and what they share fills your main stage the same way yours fills theirs — a form they’re stuck on, a letter they’ve received, something they want to show you rather than describe. Four things worth knowing before you ask them to:
  • It works on a computer, not a phone. iPhones and iPads can’t share a screen from a browser, so the button doesn’t appear there. If your client is on a phone, ask them to describe what they’re looking at.
  • Only they can stop it. You can’t end their share from your side. If they forget they’re still sharing, ask them — they’ll see a “Stop sharing” button in their own toolbar, and their browser puts up its own sharing bar as well.
  • One of you at a time. If one of you is already sharing, the other sees a short note saying so. Whoever is sharing stops first.
  • The whiteboard stays with you. Clients can share a screen; they can’t open the whiteboard. That’s still yours.
Starting an EMDR set counts as sharing too, because the stimulus reaches your client the same way a shared screen does. If your client is sharing when you go to start a set, Rivet will tell you, and they’ll need to stop first.

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Bandwidth and quality during a share

While you’re sharing, your camera automatically drops to a lower resolution — the face tile is small enough that you won’t see the difference, and the reduced camera load gives the screen share more room on the connection. When you stop sharing, your camera resolution returns automatically.

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What happens on slower or older browsers

On very old browsers (rare in 2026), the face tile can’t appear alongside the shared content. In that case, the screen replaces your camera for the duration of the share — the client still sees your shared content, just not your face while sharing. Most sessions never hit this path.

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Stopping a share

Three ways to stop:
  • Tap Share Screen again in the toolbar. Most reliable.
  • Tap “Stop sharing” in your browser’s native sharing bar. The black bar at the top of your screen Chrome/Safari put up while you’re sharing. Same result.
  • End the call. Tearing down the call tears down the share.
Once the share stops, the layout snaps back to standard — client’s video fills the main stage, your camera returns to its corner tile, your camera resolution returns to full. The same three work for your client, on their side.

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What’s safe to share

What you share is end-to-end encrypted, the same as the audio and video. It’s not stored, and it’s not recorded. A few practical caveats:
  • Anything visible on the shared screen is visible to the client. Close email, hide notifications, and pick a specific window rather than your whole screen if you want to be precise.
  • Notifications that pop up during a share are visible. Turn on Do Not Disturb (macOS Focus / Windows Focus Assist) before sharing.
  • The same applies to your client. If you’re asking them to share, it costs nothing to say “pick just the one window” first — they may not have thought about what else is open.
  • System audio is not shared. Rivet shares video only — if you play a sound on your computer, the client doesn’t hear it. If you need to share audio for a clinical reason (e.g. a guided meditation track), use the EMDR auditory bilateral stimulation instead, which is purpose-built for in-session audio.

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What’s not in scope

  • Tab audio. Some tools let you share a Chrome tab including the audio playing in it. Rivet doesn’t (the use case for therapy is narrow, and the cross-browser story is unreliable).
  • Annotation on top of the share. Use the whiteboard if you want a drawable surface — it’s the same workflow.
  • Screen sharing from a phone or tablet. Neither you nor your client can share a screen from an iPhone or iPad. Everything else in a session works there.

Whiteboard

The drawable alternative to a screen share.

The session workspace

Where the Share Screen button lives.

EMDR overview

Bilateral stimulation in the same session.