Care to help me pick a pay-once remote desktop control app?

[pullman]

Greetings

I've come to realise that I will need to find a commercial solution to assist my old mum with her Mac Mini which is still on High Sierra. I've tried several free alternatives but they're not reliable enough (including Nomachine which looked good but didn't run well).

My solution so far – Skype screen sharing with her doing the pointing and clicking – doesn't work any longer.

I'm looking at a pay-once solution (no subscription) which works on my Macs (all on Monterey) and her Mini. Ideally I should also be able to use it to access my own Mac Pros remotely (from my MBA and my iPhone) so the licence shouldn't be limited to only one machine.

The App Store suggests Apple Remote Desktop at 79 USD and Jump Desktop at 35 USD. There's also Screens 5 which I believe has a lifetime price of 75 US bucks in addition to the subscription options. Perhaps there are other ones too.

Does ARD or Screens do anything that Jump doesn't?

I basically just need to be able to install updates, move and copy files, do basic maintenance and clean-up and stuff like that.

Thanks very much in advance
Philip

 

[Imac Sam]

I use the free personal version of Anydesk. It works fine an allows you to do all your requirements.

 

[doogm]

I use Screens 5 because it's super-reliable for me and I can access my Macs from another Mac, iPad, or iPhone (rare). It also has a quick control that will enter the user account passphrase at the Lock Screen with a simple touch/click.

 

[BrianBaughn]

I haven't done any such remote work in a while…and things are different now. It sounds like you need something that, after it's set up, requires no action on your mum's part.

 

[Apple_Robert]

Screens 5 and Jump Desktop are 2 of the best, in my opinion.

 

[chrfr]

Greetings

I've come to realise that I will need to find a commercial solution to assist my old mum with her Mac Mini which is still on High Sierra. I've tried several free alternatives but they're not reliable enough (including Nomachine which looked good but didn't run well).

My solution so far – Skype screen sharing with her doing the pointing and clicking – doesn't work any longer.

I'm looking at a pay-once solution (no subscription) which works on my Macs (all on Monterey) and her Mini. Ideally I should also be able to use it to access my own Mac Pros remotely (from my MBA and my iPhone) so the licence shouldn't be limited to only one machine.

The App Store suggests Apple Remote Desktop at 79 USD and Jump Desktop at 35 USD. There's also Screens 5 which I believe has a lifetime price of 75 US bucks in addition to the subscription options. Perhaps there are other ones too.

Does ARD or Screens do anything that Jump doesn't?

I basically just need to be able to install updates, move and copy files, do basic maintenance and clean-up and stuff like that.

Thanks very much in advance
Philip

Apple Remote Desktop isn’t the right tool for this job- it’s primarily for administrators of a bunch of Macs, to be used on the local network. It doesn’t provide any built-in way to connect to computers that are located elsewhere on the internet.
As the others suggested, Jump Desktop is a great way to go. It’s fast and easy to use.

 

[pullman]

I use the free personal version of Anydesk. It works fine an allows you to do all your requirements.

Thank you Sam, Anydesk does look very good. Does the free version allow you to restart the remote Mac? From the comparison table on their site it seems it might not, or?

cheers
Philip

 

[pullman]

I use Screens 5 because it's super-reliable for me and I can access my Macs from another Mac, iPad, or iPhone (rare). It also has a quick control that will enter the user account passphrase at the Lock Screen with a simple touch/click.

Thank you for this. I'm reading good things about Screens 5 but I'm not sure it would be worth the cost for me, if other less expensive options do the trick.

 

[pullman]

I haven't done any such remote work in a while…and things are different now. It sounds like you need something that, after it's set up, requires no action on your mum's part.

Yes that's exactly it, I'd need to be able to access her computer without her being there at the other end. With such an old Mac Mini (2011) I suppose it won't wake up on remote access so I'd have to ask her to wake it up or time access to the schedule I've set for backups. But I'd wish to avoid her having to do anything more difficult than waking the computer up.

 

[pullman]

Screens 5 and Jump Desktop are 2 of the best, in my opinion.

Thank you Robert. They do look like very solid options.

 

[pullman]

Apple Remote Desktop isn’t the right tool for this job- it’s primarily for administrators of a bunch of Macs, to be used on the local network. It doesn’t provide any built-in way to connect to computers that are located elsewhere on the internet.
As the others suggested, Jump Desktop is a great way to go. It’s fast and easy to use.

Thank you for clearing this up for me, this is good to know. I hadn't read the info about it that way.

 

[Apple_Robert]

Thank you Sam, Anydesk does look very good. Does the free version allow you to restart the remote Mac? From the comparison table on their site it seems it might not, or?

cheers
Philip

Unless you have FileVault turned off, you won’t be able to reboot and log back into the remote Mac. That is the case with Jump or Screens.

 

[chrfr]

Unless you have FileVault turned off, you won’t be able to reboot and log back into the remote Mac. That is the case with Jump or Screens.

You can issue a command to reboot a Filevault protected computer and have it automatically start all the way up, but if the computer restarts on its own or if someone else reboots it the usual way, this is correct.
You can use this command to restart the FileVault computer:

sudo fdesetup authrestart

 

[Apple_Robert]

You can issue a command to reboot a Filevault protected computer and have it automatically start all the way up, but if the computer restarts on its own or if someone else reboots it the usual way, this is correct.
You can use this command to restart the FileVault computer:

sudo fdesetup authrestart

I wasn't clear in my previous post but, both Jump and Screens can remotely reboot a Mac. What they can't do with FileVault turned on, is initiate the user log in as well. If I turn off FileVault, I can reboot my Macs and both apps will log me in again. The latter is what I was addressing in my previous post although I didn't make it clear.

 

[sevoneone]

I will point out the alternative option of setting up something like ZeroTier or Tailscale on your and your mom’s Macs and using the screen sharing built into macOS. Slightly more complicated to setup, a bit more secure and also completely free.

ZeroTier is the exact setup I use with family. Computer’s joined to the same ZeroTier network behave like they are on the same local network. Like a VPN, but it’s basically set it and forget it. No connect/disconnect steps and is completely transparent to the user. My parents iMac appears in the Finder sidebar just like it was in the next room.

 

[pullman]

Thank you very much @chrfr and @Apple_Robert . My mum doesn't have FileVault turned on at the moment so I suppose that means I can reboot her computer remotely if necessary.

I will point out the alternative option of setting up something like ZeroTier or Tailscale on your and your mom’s Macs and using the screen sharing built into macOS. Slightly more complicated to setup, a bit more secure and also completely free.

ZeroTier is the exact setup I use with family. Computer’s joined to the same ZeroTier network behave like they are on the same local network. Like a VPN, but it’s basically set it and forget it. No connect/disconnect steps and is completely transparent to the user. My parents iMac appears in the Finder sidebar just like it was in the next room.

Thank you for pointing these out to me. Any reason you prefer ZeroTier over Tailscale?

On a side note, I see that at least Tailscale might permit accessing a media library via an Apple TV. That could be really interesting. My ATV4k is connected to my film library which is being shared on our home network. Perhaps I could access that too when outside the house?

 

[Apple_Robert]

Thank you very much @chrfr and @Apple_Robert . My mum doesn't have FileVault turned on at the moment so I suppose that means I can reboot her computer remotely if necessary.

Thank you for pointing these out to me. Any reason you prefer ZeroTier over Tailscale?

On a side note, I see that at least Tailscale might permit accessing a media library via an Apple TV. That could be really interesting. My ATV4k is connected to my film library which is being shared on our home network. Perhaps I could access that too when outside the house?

I use Tailscale to access my Plex server when away from home. It works well over all, albeit sometimes it can get slow and you have to disconnect and reconnect the device you are using to connect to the home network. My Apple TV serves as my Node (where all the Tailscale traffic goes through).

 

[chrfr]

I wasn't clear in my previous post but, both Jump and Screens can remotely reboot a Mac. What they can't do with FileVault turned on, is initiate the user log in as well. If I turn off FileVault, I can reboot my Macs and both apps will log me in again. The latter is what I was addressing in my previous post although I didn't make it clear.

No, I got that. The fdesetup authrestart command works around that to reboot a FileVault computer and bring it back to the signed-in user, but again this only works if it’s a planned restart.

 

[doogm]

I will point out the alternative option of setting up something like ZeroTier or Tailscale on your and your mom’s Macs and using the screen sharing built into macOS. Slightly more complicated to setup, a bit more secure and also completely free.

ZeroTier is the exact setup I use with family. Computer’s joined to the same ZeroTier network behave like they are on the same local network. Like a VPN, but it’s basically set it and forget it. No connect/disconnect steps and is completely transparent to the user. My parents iMac appears in the Finder sidebar just like it was in the next room.

Despite the fact that I mentioned earlier that I use Screens 5, I do use Tailscale with my Macs and mobile devices as well. I may have gone this route if Tailscale had been around when I started using Screens.

That said, there are a couple of issues with Tailscale. First, by default it expires the login key after 90 days IIRC. You can go into the admin console for your Tailscale account and disable the key expiration if you wish, though.

The second issue is that the default MacOS client is tied to a Mac user account. It's probably not an issue for your use, but for me I have a Mac with multiple accounts that I am occasionally remote from, so attaching to it and logging in to another account can be a problem, plus a restart means that it won't reconnect the Tailscale client. What I do instead is follow the instructions on this page to install the open source command line version that is available to all user accounts, plus I have no FileVault and have the machine set to automatically log in to a standard (non-admin) account.

Having Tailscale running does make connecting with Screens quite a bit easier in my case, because one of the locations where I have a Mac has a double-NAT (i.e., router behind a router) and Screens Connect on the Mac isn't able to work in that case (even trying to allow it through the firewall on the outer router.)

 

[pullman]

I use the free personal version of Anydesk. It works fine an allows you to do all your requirements.

Thank you again for this suggestion. I managed to get mum to install Anydesk on the Mini but it appears not to work so well. The app opens but it doesn't notice my connections. It only asks to grant permission to control the screen but not full disk access. That option isn't present in Sys Prefs–Security on High Sierra. And when she clicked to install the Anydesk Service application the computer beachballed and the app had to be force quit. So perhaps there are compatibility issues with High Sierra?

 

[pullman]

Hello everyone

I just wanted to post a brief progress report. I tried Tailscale which was easy to install and set up. Unfortunately it doesn't work on High Sierra. I then tried Zerotier and which works great. It's actually amazing to be able to screen share into an old Mac Mini running High Sierra. It even wakes up from sleep upon access which I hadn't expected.

Cheers
Philip