Windows shows which apps are using your microphone. Screen-share exclusion doesn't touch that.
Two separate systems, easy to conflate. One controls what a shared screen shows. The other tracks which apps have your microphone open, and it doesn't care whether anything is being shared at all.
A second indicator, and it isn't about your screen
Windows 10 and 11 track every app with an open microphone capture session and surface that in two places: a small indicator that lights up while the mic is active, and a "recently used" list under Settings → Privacy & security → Microphone. Neither of those reads the screen. Neither cares whether you're sharing anything, recording anything, or running a video call at all. They watch one thing: which processes currently have a handle open on the microphone device.
That makes it a completely different problem from screen capture. CueStream's answer panel being excluded from screen share changes what a shared screen contains. It changes nothing about which apps Windows lists as using the microphone, those are two unrelated subsystems, and a tool that only solves the first one hasn't touched the second at all.
"Politely" using the mic doesn't save you
It's tempting to assume this only applies to an app that hogs the microphone for itself, surely something that plays nicely alongside other audio apps wouldn't show up the same way. It does. Nearly every normal app, including a regular CueStream session, opens the microphone the ordinary, shareable way, and Windows lists it exactly the same as it would an app that took the microphone all to itself. There's no quieter way to turn the microphone on.
Capturing the mic directly
Shows up the moment the session starts, screen-share exclusion has no effect here.
Phone bridge active
Nothing to show, the desktop never opened the microphone at all.
A simplified recreation of what Settings → Privacy & security → Microphone reports, not a screenshot of the real dialog.
What the phone actually changes
Your phone doesn't hide a microphone session, it prevents one from existing on the desktop. Turn on "Use your phone as microphone" before starting a session and the phone becomes a single room microphone that hears both sides of the conversation: your voice, and the interviewer's voice as it comes out of your own speakers. That audio travels straight to the desktop over your own Wi-Fi, never through CueStream's servers. The desktop app never turns on the Windows microphone, and never taps into what's playing through your speakers either. There's nothing for the indicator to report, because neither one ever runs.
That's true whether the phone side is the Android app or just a browser tab. Both connect to the exact same listener on the desktop, over the same encrypted local connection; from Windows' point of view the desktop's own microphone is equally untouched either way.
That's the whole mechanism. Not a lower-visibility way to use the microphone, no use of it on that machine at all.
How pairing works
Starting a session with the toggle on shows a QR code on the desktop. Scan it with your phone's own camera and it opens directly in your browser, no app, no account, and it works the same on an iPhone as on Android. If you'd rather use the Android app, scanning the same QR with it works too. Either way it's a one-time code generated fresh for that session and worthless the moment it ends, no persistent trust between devices, nothing stored on the phone afterward. A dropped Wi-Fi signal reconnects on its own for as long as the session runs; a backgrounded phone does too, if it's running the Android app, a browser tab can't keep streaming once the screen locks or you switch apps, so keep it in view if that's your path.
What this does not do
- It does not hide CueStream from the machine it's installed on. Task Manager, endpoint monitoring, and installed-software inventories work by enumerating processes, not by checking the microphone indicator, none of that changes.
- It's specific to the microphone indicator. It says nothing about a browser-based assessment logging tab focus or paste events, or a camera pointed at you.
- It's a second physical device. A phone visibly out during a call is exactly that, visible, if the interviewer can see your surroundings.
- It doesn't decide whether you're allowed to. What you agreed to before the interview or assessment started is the actual answer to that question, not this page.
Most other interview-copilot tools capture the microphone directly on the same machine running the call, which is exactly the setup this indicator exists to catch. The phone bridge is what CueStream does instead.
Does it matter if CueStream is only "sharing" the microphone, not locking it exclusively?
No. Windows shows an app on the list the moment it opens the microphone at all, whether or not other apps can use it at the same time. Almost every normal app, CueStream included, uses the microphone the "shareable" way, and it still shows up.
Does the phone bridge also hide CueStream from Task Manager?
No. On whichever computer CueStream is actually installed on, it’s an ordinary program: visible in Task Manager, and visible to any monitoring software your employer has installed there, same as described on the screen-share page. This is specifically about the microphone indicator, a different, narrower thing than whether the program itself is visible.
Can I verify this myself?
Yes, and you should before relying on it. Open Settings → Privacy & security → Microphone on Windows 11, start an ordinary CueStream session, and watch CueStream appear in recent activity. Stop it, turn on "Use your phone as microphone," start again, and watch it not appear.
Do I need to install anything on my phone?
No. Scan the QR CueStream shows at session start with your phone’s own camera and it opens straight in your browser, no app, no account, works on iPhone the same as Android. There’s also an Android app if you want it, for one specific reason covered below, but it’s optional either way.
Then why does an Android app exist at all?
One narrow reason: a browser tab can’t keep streaming once your phone’s screen locks or you switch apps, mobile browsers suspend that in the background. The Android app runs a foreground service that keeps the mic open through exactly that. If your phone just stays on and the tab stays open, the browser does the same job with nothing to install.
How does CueStream tell the two voices apart without its own separate feed of the interviewer?
The same way phone-call mode already does: it listens to one mixed recording of both people talking and works out who said what, rather than getting each voice on its own clean line. See the phone-screen page for how that works.
Why is there no echo cancellation in this mode?
Echo cancellation exists to stop one specific problem: your speakers playing the interviewer’s voice while your microphone is also listening, so that voice doesn’t get picked up and transcribed twice. With one phone hearing the room once, that problem doesn’t come up, there’s only one recording to begin with.
Try it before you need it
Test the toggle on a practice round: watch the Settings microphone activity list with it off, then with it on. The free hour every account starts with is enough to confirm it before a real call, and if you're on iPhone or just don't want to install anything, the QR scan alone is enough to try it.
Download CueStream for WindowsDownload the Android companion app