remote access...

[gpspad]

My parents have a mac mini, they are steadily learning how to do things, but often they have a lot of questions. I find myself doing technical support through the phone a lot. click this, look for this, click that, etc....

It occurred to me it would be easier for both of us to use my macbook or mac to login and see their screen while they are logged in.

Im not in the IT field, so don't know a lot about VNC. Is there an apple program or free tools that would allow me to do this?

Sometimes I will be a way, sometimes I would be on the same wireless network as them. Not sure what is doable.

My chicken of the VNC experienced didn't work out well with the macbook, so thought there may be other solutions.

 

[ian.maffett]

If you set up an account for yourself on their Mac, sign in to iCloud and enable Back to my Mac and also set up Screenshare in System Preferences, you will then be able to see their Mac on the left side of Finder on your Mac under shared. You can connect and share screens with them when ever you like.

 

[maflynn]

I recommend teamviewer, its free and does what you want

 

[gpspad]

Thanks for the replies, the "back to my mac" looks cool, but there would be two different apple id's. They have their's and I have mine. Would creating a user on my macbook with their apple id get around this?

 

[GGJstudios]

I use TeamViewer, which is free for personal use and works with Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, Ubuntu, iPhone, iPad, etc. It's very secure and private and quite simple to set up and use (no messing around with ports), which comes in handy if providing remote support to those who aren't very computer literate. You can talk them through the setup on their end and be connected to them in less than a minute. I prefer it over LogMeIn because it includes free file transfers between computers, a feature I use frequently. Also, TeamViewer doesn't affect audio settings on OS X, as many have reported that LogMeIn does.

 

[chrfr]

Thanks for the replies, the "back to my mac" looks cool, but there would be two different apple id's. They have their's and I have mine. Would creating a user on my macbook with their apple id get around this?

You can do screen sharing through the Messages application easily:
http://jimmymacsupport.com/os-x-yosemite-tip-screen-sharing-via-imessages/

 

[NoBoMac]

Thanks chrfr for the tip: didn't realize Messages has that capability (I've only chatted).

I've used Google Remote Desktop. Works great. Both need to have a Google account, Chrome, and the remote desktop Chrome extension/app.

But, TeamViewer is really good, and has the bonus of not having to have same capabilities (eg. both having Yosemite Macs or Google accounts).

 

[ian.maffett]

You can do screen sharing through the Messages application easily:
http://jimmymacsupport.com/os-x-yosemite-tip-screen-sharing-via-imessages/

Right on with Messages. That will and has always worked well. I see Yosemite has it native for iMessage but prior versions would require an AIM or such account.

As for the back to my mac, that's where the user account on the other mac comes in. You create one for you, sign in there with your Apple ID in iCloud - they continue to use theirs as normal, otherwise. This is how I do it but the Messages approach is excellent as well.

 

[gpspad]

Wow, thanks for all the tips. I learned a lot.

Are any of the methods better when one computer has a different resolution than the other?

That was my problem with chicken of the VNC. The screen didn't fit on my macbook, couldn't figure out how to navigate it or change the resolution.

Im going to start going through all those....

 

[chrfr]

Wow, thanks for all the tips. I learned a lot.

Are any of the methods better when one computer has a different resolution than the other?

That was my problem with chicken of the VNC. The screen didn't fit on my macbook, couldn't figure out how to navigate it or change the resolution.

Im going to start going through all those....

Apple's Screen Sharing triggered through Messages (or otherwise) will automatically scale down the larger display.