Helping Others With Their Macs Using Screen Sharing Through Messages

Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Let me show you how you can help a friend or family member with their Mac using Screen Sharing, but without having to setup anything special in advance. 

So you probably know that there are ways to help others with Macs by sharing their screen with you and then allowing you to control the screen so you can show them how to do something or help them with troubleshooting. But you don't need any special software to do this. You don't really need to set anything up in advance. The Screen Sharing ability is built right into macOS. Standard macOS that everybody has. You can start it by just using the Messages App or the FaceTime App. I'm going to show you how to do it using Messages. 

So if you're already messaging using the Messages App with somebody else with a Mac you can start this as well. You don't have to setup anything else. There's nothing you need to turn on in System Settings. So here I am in the Messages App and let's say I'm just going to talk to that other person. I'm just chatting with them as I might be doing normally. This is what they see on their end and they can chat back with me. Now let's say they've got a problem and they know that you know Macs better than they do. So then you can ask them to see their screen. All you need to do for that is go to the Menu Bar, right here, to Conversation. You'll find an option there to Ask To Share or they could have done it from their end by going to Share My Screen. So you can do it from either end there. I'll use Ask To Share here and look at what they get on their end. It's going to launch FaceTime for me and on their end it will start a FaceTime call. Once they do they get this little box here, Choose To Share. So they can click that and then at the top they then click Share Entire Screen. 

So now they're sharing their entire screen here. This is what I see here on my end. I see their screen in a window. This may be all you need. At this point they might just demonstrate for you what the problem is and then you can talk to them and give them advice and tell them things to try. If that's all you need, that's fine. But if you want to go to the next level and actually control their screen you can do that as well. 

If you look at the top here you've got this button. Click that and that requests control. You can see what they see on their end. They get this little dialogue here and they allow control. Now that you're controlling their screen you can actually move things around like that. You can click on things, you can launch apps, you can type into apps. You're basically controlling their stuff remotely. So, you can go in and troubleshoot things. You can go into System Settings. You have complete control over their device. 

So obviously you should only be doing this between two people who trust each other.

But, of course, you still don't know their passwords for doing things on their Mac. So you're not going to be able to do things like install software and all of that unless you happen to know their password or they type because they can type things as well because they can control their Mac still.They can still use their trackpad or mouse and keyboard to do things while you're controlling. So you can kind of go back and forth, them showing you some things, you taking over control and all of that. 

At any time you can stop control with the button up here. You also can use this button for a few other things like go to the App Launcher and Spotlight, use Mission Control, go and view the Desktop. So you have some more controls here at the top. You've got some zooming controls here as well. All the typical screen sharing stuff. 

On their end they could always end the FaceTime call. So stop with the audio and it will stop screen sharing. But they can also go up here and they can end remote control. So that'll turn it back to fully their control and you're just watching. But they could also turn off Screen Sharing entirely clicking here. Or if they end control after doing that they can stop sharing completely, like that and the Share is over. 

If you find these videos valuable consider joining the more than 3000 others that support MacMost through Patreon. You get exclusive content, course discounts, and more. You can read about it macmost.com/patreon. 

Now you can also just do this in FaceTime. So if you're already FaceTiming with the other person you can do that. I'm going to start FaceTime here with that person there. While I FaceTime you can click the three dots button here and you can see you can do Screen Sharing and have those two options here, Share My Screen or Ask them to Share with you. If you choose Ask To Share you'll see they get the same little dialogue up at the top right corner. It's the same process after that. 

Note they did not have to anything setup in advance for this. If you look in System Settings and you go to General and then you go down here to Sharing note that Screen Sharing is actually turned Off. Turning that On would allow, say you if you're using a second Mac to be able to Screen Share to your first Mac. But you don't need it turned On here because FaceTime is asking permission. It's basically asking to turn it On temporarily for that one session. 

Now it should be noted that this isn't perfect. Sometimes it doesn't work. Lots of security things will block this. It could be security on your home networking equipment or their home networking equipment. It could be something you've got installed on your Mac or their Mac that's kind of blocking this. Or it could just be a poor or inconsistent internet connection that's not allowing the Screen Sharing. So sometimes it doesn't work and it just can't seem to work between two people because of one situation or the other. Sometimes it will work sometimes and not other times. So be aware that it's a great tool when it works, but it doesn't always work. But it is certainly worth a try if you want to help somebody out. It's a lot easier than fumbling around trying to have them explain to you what they are seeing and then you explain to them what to do without being able to see their screen. This is the easy way to help somebody else on a Mac and get it done fast. Of course you can go beyond simple troubleshooting with this. You can use this as a tool for teaching a friend or family member how to do things on their Mac. 

So hope you found this useful. Thanks for watching.