This drove me crazy for a while, because I couldn’t find the option to hide the stage in a Skype for Business conversation once I no longer wanted to see what someone was presenting on their screen – might not happen very often, but it happened enough to want to hunt it down, and it’s not as intuitive as I’d think it would be. Honestly, I expected the option to be a bit more straightforward, like maybe at the top of the screen right beside Request Control? I’d even settle for it being behind the ellipse (…) on the bottom right, but no…
To hide the stage, click the sharing button, then Hide Stage:
Simple, right? Just as simple as clicking File – Open – Import in Outlook 2010 to actually export a file!
Sigh… hope this helps someone else who’s been wondering where that dang “hide stage” button is!
Master & CmdR 
This helped immensely! (And yes, I too am baffled by the “click Import to Export” concept.) 🙂
Thanks!
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Glad it helped you, Eric!
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This saved me from the annoying Skype for Business
Thanks very much. 🙂
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Hey for those this worked for what version of skype for business are you using please? testing this now i dont seem to have the Hide stage option only manage content
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Hi Chrissy,
I just tested on Office/Skype version 1711 (Build 8730.2165), and Version 1712 (Build 8827.2099) – in both cases, the hide stage option was immediately below the manage content option. Once the presentation stopped, the hide stage button moved to the middle of the screen, leaving behind only the manage content at the bottom. I doubt that’s what your issue is, but it seems to still be valid.
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Thanks Jeremy you are correct, its me getting confused sorry.
we already get the hide stage in the middle of the screen, I was actually after a way to remotely hide the stage generated from the presenters end.
would like a way to hide the stage so a client in a meeting room for example wouldn’t have to click or work out how to do this.
I guess the only way would be to take control in this instance.
Many Thanks
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No worries – that’s an interesting scenario, I can’t think of a way you’d be able to do that one.
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Thank you ) it helped even with Office Communicator 2010 ) just decided to search it in less obvious place following “let’s play hide and seek” logic that seems guids developers in this team )
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Hahaha… that’s awesome! Glad it was still helpful 😃
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And now you’ve hidden it – how do you un-hide it?
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Hey Douglas,
Surprisingly, I’m having a hard time finding a pure Skype environment to check this in (almost everything I’m connecting to is in Teams now), but I’m pretty sure you click on the same button – then click “Manage Content”, and then you can show the stage again. Hope this helps!
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Same goes for me ! Never thought of clicking the ‘share’ button to hide someone else’s stage 🙂
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Oh gosh, thank you! I was helping someone with their computer and they forgot to stop sharing and I couldn’t figure out how to hide it — but also didn’t want to close the window and lose the chat history because we’re going to reconnect after their meeting ends. So this was helpful thank you
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