REMOTE ACCESS
Get remote access to another Mac using VNC
IT WILL TAKE
10 minutes
YOU WILL LEARN
How to share your screen using VNC
YOU’LL NEED
Your own Mac and another macOS or iOS device Back in 2007 Apple introduced its own Screen Sharing feature for OS X 10.5 (Leopard) to provide an easy way to share your desktop with other users. Although this is a fantastic feature, it has its drawbacks: for instance, if you want to share your screen with someone else, they need a valid user account password.
Fortunately, macOS also supports VNC (Virtual Network Computing). This is a slightly older system for screen sharing across networks and is supported on all platforms. This means you can access your Mac from a non-Apple machine or even a mobile device like an iPhone.
Easy sharing
VNC works through using a dedicated password to connect, which means you don’t have to give out your user account password to share your screen. Sadly, the protocol doesn’t encrypt your data by default over local networks, so it’s quite easy for snoopers to see what you’re doing on your Mac. If this is a worry, return to System Preferences > Sharing to disable ‘Screen Sharing’.
In this guide, you’ll discover how to start the VNC service on your Mac and set a password to allow others to connect. You’ll also discover how to connect to your Mac via VNC. This is supported out of the box on macOS. For other devices, you’ll need to install a special VNC client app such as RealVNC’s VNC Viewer.
You can access your Mac from a non-Apple machine