Hide OBS window in Display Capture source?

[zamar71]

Hello guys,

In Display Capture source, OBS Studio shows its own window resulting in multiple enclosed displays captured. How to exclude the OBS window from Display Capture?

 

[Mr. Proxy]

Hi Zamar,
you have to choose Window Capture instead of Display Capture in order to capture the desired application. You can even minimise this window when chosen.

 

[zamar71]

It's not a suitable solution, since I need to capture the display, where clicking on some window options results in opening satellite windows with more options. It also doesn't make sense for OBS window to appear in Display Capture anyway, since its purpose is to show the captured display, and not itself multiple times. There must be some standard solution to this, that an OBS developer can suggest?

 

[qhobbes]

OBS Settings, General, System Tray, Check boxes for Enable and Always minimize to system tray instead of task bar.
Hotkeys, Create hotkeys for Start and Stop Recording.
Advanced, Hotkeys, Set Hotkey Focus Behavior to Never disable hotkeys or Disable hotkeys when main window is in focus.
Restart OBS and then minimize OBS. You should now be able to Display Capture record without OBS in view unless you open the system tray.

I just did this and the only evidence of OBS was when I opened Task Manger and the system tray (just OBS icon with red dot). It doesn't even show in Alt+Tab when minimized.

 

[zamar71]

Following your steps, I also found its possible to hide an OBS window using "Hide" RMC option for OBS icon in system tray, then "Start Recording" and "Stop Recording" RMC options. It records the Display video without OBS window shown in it. Great, and should be in Online Help, as this is critical functionality.

 

[zamar71]

Is there a way to select a certain display zone to capture? For example, instead of using Window Capture option, I want to rectangle capture right half of the display, and exclude all installed apps icons on the left side and Windows Taskbar?

 

[qhobbes]

Hold ALT + drag the bounding box to crop the Display Source.

 

[RedDrop]

OBS Settings, General, System Tray, Check boxes for Enable and Always minimize to system tray instead of task bar.
Hotkeys, Create hotkeys for Start and Stop Recording.
Advanced, Hotkeys, Set Hotkey Focus Behavior to Never disable hotkeys or Disable hotkeys when main window is in focus.
Restart OBS and then minimize OBS. You should now be able to Display Capture record without OBS in view unless you open the system tray.

I just did this and the only evidence of OBS was when I opened Task Manger and the system tray (just OBS icon with red dot). It doesn't even show in Alt+Tab when minimized.

how do i disable the running in the background, everytime i open obs it just flashes a tab for a second and then it disappears, it still records when i press my hotkeys but now i cant adjust andything at all

 

[omar17166]

Following your steps, I also found its possible to hide an OBS window using "Hide" RMC option for OBS icon in system tray, then "Start Recording" and "Stop Recording" RMC options. It records the Display video without OBS window shown in it. Great, and should be in Online Help, as this is critical functionality.

What is this "Hide" RMC option? I don't get it! where is it? Can you please explain a bit more?

 

[Mark Weiss]

27.2 is supposed to have this feature "Hide OBS window", according to a Youtube video showing how to set it up, but I downloaded and installed 27.2 just now and it's missing from the menu.

 

[koala]

The function to hide OBS from display capture is in Settings->General->General->Hide OBS windows from screen capture.
And it works. Quite creepy function, if you ask me.

 

[Mark Weiss]

In the Youtube video, it was a third checkbox under Open stats dialog on startup, but as you can see here on my copy, it's missing.

 

[koala]

Make sure you're actually running OBS version 27.2.0 or above. I assume it also requires reasonably updated Windows 10 and 11, and may be it also requires Direct3D 11 renderer in Settings->Advanced->Video.
For me, it's there on a Windows 10 and a Windows 11 machine:

Funny thing is, this also makes OBS vanish from any screenshots.

 

[Mark Weiss]

This is the version under the Help... about menu:

D3D11 is the ONLY available option on that dropdown:

Are there any other settings which much be in place for this to appear? Dependencies in the configuration of OBS?

I was thinking that maybe some folks are running an early release version (which got a log of complaints of system lockups), so maybe OBS removed the feature to make it more stable in the current download?

 

[koala]

I updated with the internal updater when 27.2.0 became available. Nothing special. Perhaps it will work for you if you uninstall and download+install from the website. Your settings will be kept.

 

[Mark Weiss]

The internal updater didn't notify of any new versions, so I had to download and install the new version as you mention, from their website. I wonder if the feature was quietly removed after a day because of all the complaints of system crashes? My version clearly is missing this feature.

 

[amssm]

I can't seem to find the third checkbox as well.

 

[koala]

I reget I cannot help any further. I even installed OBS in my Hyper-V based virtual testing VM with the standalone installer, and the option is available. Worked on Windows 10 21H2 (Build 19044.1526) as well as on Windows 11 21H2 build 22000.493 - both the most recent versions currently available from Windows update.

 

[Mark Weiss]

I went to the OBS website today to download the latest version and it's ... 27.1.3! Looks like they pulled 27.2?

After some hunting around, I found 27.2 on Github and downloaded it again. Installed it again over the 27.2 I've got. Same problem. Hide OBS item missing from menu.

 

[amssm]

To add more context, I'm missing this option in the MAC version.