How do I remotely update AnyDesk so it properly restarts on the remote Mac?

[smorris]

I've been using AnyDesk to remotely access my headless Mac mini M2 Pro. I am accessing it with my MacBook M3 Pro.

The last time that there was an update the AnyDesk, I did the update remotely. Of course my session ended because AnyDesk quit and restarted on the Mac mini. But after the update I couldn't access it. I restarted the Mac mini, but no joy.

So, I hooked up the monitor to the Mac mini (which is a PITA because it is not easily accessible) and connected my wireless mouse and keyboard to the Mac mini. What I found was that AnyDesk didn't restart because the dialog box telling me that it was from a third party developer came up and was waiting for me to approve it. The Mac Mini's security setting is/was set to "App Store and identified developers"

There is now another update to AnyDesk, and I'd really like to avoid going through these steps again. Any suggestion for how to skip the third party dialog box? Thank you!!

 

[Bigwaff]

Why not enable the built-in screen sharing in macOS? Connect with built-in screen sharing and update your program. Then you can interact with any dialogs, restart your program, etc.

 

[smorris]

Well, that worked! I thought I'd tried that before, and never got Apple's screen sharing to work. Thanks for rattling something loose in my foggy brain.

 

[jlg89]

This works if you're on the local network (in which case why even use AnyDesk?) but not if you're remote. What's the actual answer to OP's original question? How do you update AnyDesk in such a way that the service automatically restarts properly?

Turns out, it's simple. Download the new version of AnyDesk, mount the "anydesk.dmg" image, and launch the app from the mounted volume. It will give you the option to update the installed version, and will handle gracefully restarting the service.