Why We Built Privacy Mode

The screen-sharing problem

If you work with multiple clients, you have probably experienced the moment of dread: someone on a video call asks you to share your screen, and your unified calendar is open in a browser tab. The interface shows events from several different clients, color-coded, with titles like "Acme roadmap review" and "Beta contract renewal" in plain sight. A consultant owes each client confidentiality, and that means another client's meeting titles should never flash onto a shared screen.

For many consultants, this is not a hypothetical scenario. It comes up multiple times per week. Some people close the tab before sharing. Some switch to a different browser profile. Some just hope nobody notices. None of these solutions are reliable, and all of them add cognitive overhead to what should be a simple action.

We heard this concern from early users more than any other feature request. The unified calendar was solving the scheduling problem, but it was creating a confidentiality problem on shared screens. People needed a way to keep other clients' details private during a call.

How Privacy Mode works

Privacy Mode is a one-click screen that turns the manyCalendars interface into a neutral, generic calendar view. By default it uses a plain, unbranded look: a generic "Calendar" heading, neutral colors, no product logos, and a generic browser tab title. When activated, the extension swaps its color scheme, typography, layout, and tab title so a glance at your screen shows a plain calendar rather than a multi-client view.

The transformation is purely cosmetic. Your data, your calendars, your settings, nothing changes except the visual presentation. Toggle Privacy Mode off and everything reverts to the normal manyCalendars interface instantly.

Activation is fast by design. Press Ctrl+Shift+S (or Cmd+Shift+S on Mac) and the generic view applies in under 100 milliseconds. That is fast enough to activate between the moment someone says "can you share your screen" and the moment you click the Share button in Zoom. You can also click the eye icon in the toolbar, or enable it from Settings if you prefer to keep it on for the duration of a meeting.

When Privacy Mode is active, the extension also suppresses toast notifications and pop-ups so a stray "Calendar synced" message does not surface another client's name mid-call. The only indicator that Privacy Mode is active is a subtle 2-pixel colored strip at the very top of the window, visible only to someone who knows to look for it.

Why this matters for consultants

Client work is built on confidentiality. When you share your screen for Client A, the meeting titles, project names, and client names on Client B's and Client C's calendars are simply not Client A's business, the same way one law firm's matters are not another client's business. Keeping them off the shared screen is basic professional hygiene.

This is the same reason you would not leave another client's contract open in a visible tab, or read out a different client's numbers on a call. Privacy Mode gives you a fast, reliable way to hold that line.

Privacy Mode is about confidentiality and control: what you show, and when you show it. The same way you would not leave your bank account open on screen during a presentation, you should not have to leave your multi-client calendar visible during a casual screen share.

The generic default, plus optional skins

By default, Privacy Mode uses a neutral, unbranded calendar look: a generic "Calendar" heading, plain colors, and no product names or logos of any kind. It looks like a plain calendar because that is all anyone glancing at your screen needs to see. This generic view is the default the moment you turn Privacy Mode on.

If you prefer, you can opt into an alternate look from Settings. These are cosmetic themes for your own screen, and they are never the default. The generic view stays the standard experience.