When you're looking to video chat, Android users aren't hurting for options, and you've got your pick of everything from Skype to Snapchat. Sometimes, though, simplicity is best, and two years back Google introduced its no-nonsense video calling app: Duo. While Duo's largely stayed true to its straightforward roots, we've slowly been seeing the software become fleshed out with some useful new features. One that Google's been working on for a while now is the ability to share your phone's screen with the party you're calling, and while it's still not live quite yet, we're finally getting a look at how it's likely to work.

Evidence for Duo screen sharing has been piling up since last fall, and while we were initially unsure if that meant something like casting your Duo call to a nearby TV, or if the feature would be more along the lines of letting a remote party view what's happening on your phone, we've definitely been leaning more towards the latter.

As we wait for Google to activate this feature, a resourceful tipster has shared with us the screenshots you find here, generated by manually setting a few flags in an app configuration file. We can see that screen sharing is activated by hitting an in-call icon, and the app gives users an appropriate heads-up that their caller is about to be able to see anything displayed on the phone's screen — take this as your warning to close any particularly embarrassing apps or Chrome tabs.

Duo's screen-share button (left), confirming sharing (center), sharing in action (right)

Even once sharing has started, it still appears that you'll have some ability to control what your caller sees, with an on-screen pause button suggesting you can momentarily stop the stream to deal with potentially sensitive material.

While we're all looking forward to being roped into “take a look and tell me why this app isn't working” duty from some of our less tech-savvy relatives once this quick-and-painless Duo screen-sharing is available, Google's still waiting to flip the switch. We'll be sure to give you a heads-up once it's finally live.

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