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In a Zoom meeting, my desktop Mac app's meeting window automatically enters Full Screen mode every time a meeting participant shares their screen.

This is very annoying if I am working in a separate window and watching the Zoom meeting off to the side. If I want the meeting to be in Full Screen I will click the Full Screen button.

This setting is controlled by the option:

Zoom > Preferences > Share Screen

  • Enter full screen when a participant shares screen

  • Maximize Zoom window when a participant shares screen

Enter full screen when a participant shares screen

However, in my Zoom app this option is greyed out and cannot be disabled.

Why is the setting greyed out? How can I prevent my Zoom window/application from entering Full Screen every time a meeting participant shares their screen?

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5 Answers 5

Reset to default
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These options are controlled by keys in the us.zoom.config.plist file:

/Library/Preferences/us.zoom.config.plist

Specifically the keys:

<key>ZAutoFullScreenWhenViewShare</key>
<true/>
<key>ZAutoFitWhenViewShare</key>
<true/>

This plist is controlled by the IT Admin and automatically installed during Self Service deployments to company machines, as described here:

https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/115001799006-Mass-Deployment-with-Preconfigured-Settings-for-Mac

If you reinstall Zoom via their website, your company's plist will not be installed and these options will not be grayed out.

Or, modify the us.zoom.config.plist file yourself. Remove the keys, then restart Zoom. So long as you have admin access to save the plist file in this location, the Zoom app should launch with those options available in the Preferences UI.

This plist may be overwritten on each app update, so you may need to make the change again.

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    This is a great answer. Found this file on my work laptop and it definitely works if you're able to remove that line of code from the .plist file. You may need admin access to do that though.
    – jimmyplaysdrums
    Jan 26, 2021 at 19:44
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I was expecting that this would be a corporate managed policy option, so I raised a ticket with IT at my workplace. They couldn't find anything in the organization-wide settings.

They recommended updating Zoom to the latest version. So I updated to Zoom 5.1.0 for macOS.

I updated with the version downloaded from the Zoom website, rather than the pre-installed version of Zoom available from the corporate self service intranet. Not sure if that matters.

I wasn't expecting this to work. But it did! After updating, the option for "Enter full screen when a participant shares screen" is no longer greyed out.

I'm not sure if it was a bug with the particular previous version, or some ongoing issue caused by version mismatch in the organization and/or using an outdated version of the app. I'll keep an eye out for if the disabled option returns.

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    I've been wrestling with the same issue here, and got wind of your post today. I reinstalled Zoom the same way you did (without uninstalling anything) and it just worked! Not sure if the fix will persist (if corp policy was even the original issue) but for the moment it no longer greys out these unremarkable but useful settings.
    – MartyMacGyver
    Jun 18, 2020 at 16:21
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If it's a corporate machine, it could be a corporate policy setting; in that case the first step is to ask IT to look into it.

That's according to this Tweet I found:

enter image description here

I did a small amount of searching and it doesn't appear there's a more common explanation; by all accounts the option should be enabled and you should have control over it.

I also confirmed that that fullscreen setting is in Zoom's policy configuration (as ZAutoFullScreenWhenViewShare) which lends credibility to this possibility. It's conceivable that the user might not be allowed to change options set in the deployment policy.

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    It is a corporate machine in my case. This is probably the answer... I'd like to accept an answer that calls out the specific policy/setting that locks the option.
    – pkamb
    Jun 14, 2020 at 5:42
  • Which I see now you've done in your edit. I'll confer with IT next week.
    – pkamb
    Jun 14, 2020 at 5:44
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    After talking with IT, they couldn't find a policy option. But they recommended updating Zoom... and that enabled the option! Was not expecting that to work, but it did.
    – pkamb
    Jun 17, 2020 at 22:37
  • @pkamb Glad it worked out. I wonder if maybe the version you had installed had once had the policy set, but it was removed already in the past and updating applied the new deployment settings. Guess it'll be a mystery. It's good the fix was easy!
    – Jason C
    Jun 18, 2020 at 8:02
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Sorry for all the confusion here around my tweet. I wasn't privy to the steps our IT actually took in detail to fix the problem, but looking back at the ticket, I found this resolution:

"removed keys in zoom plist"

I assume that's referring to the keys "ZAutoFullScreenWhenViewShare" and "FullScreenWhenJoin" in the OSX plist installer (found here, search "full"). Since they referred to removing them, I expect deleting them from the .plist would un-default and un-lock these settings.

After making this change I think Zoom did update via our self-service update system, so that might be needed for it to take effect.

It would also make sense that (if you're able) installing via the official installer, and not a corporate installer distribution, would resolve the issue as it would not include the default keys in the .dmg from Zoom.

But I think that's the real answer—it's a key in the mass deployment .plist file for Mac OS. Hope this helps!

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You need to delete this file

 /Library/Preferences/us.zoom.config.plist

and reinstall Zoom, I found out that even after reinstalling the app

/Library/Preferences/us.zoom.config.plist

would still be percent. I was able to download the app directly from the company's server.

that fixed my problem

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