Screen Sharing in OS X

Many of us who have Leopard and Snow Leopard have already played around with the great screen sharing capabilities. In both Leopard and Snow Leopard, Apple offers screen sharing using a lightweight VNC client aptly named ‘Screen Sharing.’ It has a similar look and feel to Apple’s more robust remote management software, Remote Desktop, but without the bells and whistles.

There are two well-advertised ways to use Screen Sharing in Leopard and Snow Leopard. The first is through the Shared sidebar in the Finder. The Shared sidebar displays other machines that are on the same local network. For example, when I’m home and working on my MacBook Pro, my Shared sidebar in Finder shows my Mac mini attached to my entertainment center. I can select the Mac mini in my sidebar and hit the ‘Share Screen…’ button which launches the Screen Sharing application and allows me to remotely view and control my Mac mini.

The second most popular way to screen share is through iChat. iChat allows you to screen share with anyone else on a Mac running Leopard or Snow Leopard. Simply select the buddy you’d like to share with and up on the menu bar select Buddies > Share My Screen… or Ask to Share Remote Screen, whichever you’d prefer to do. Alternatively, you can just right-click on your buddy in the buddy list and select ‘Share My Screen’ or ‘Ask to Share…’. This is great way to share screens, which is especially helpful when helping your friends or family members with computer questions.

There is one lesser-known way to use Screen Sharing as a traditional VNC viewer. Simply open Screen Sharing directly by going to System > Library > CoreServices > and double-click on Screen Sharing. You will be asked for an IP address. Simply enter the IP address of the machine you’d like to connect to, then enter the username and password when prompted and, voila, you’re in! While this might not be useful for the average user, for those of us who regularly use VNC clients, it’s nice to know that there’s a solid easy-to-use client built right into the OS X platform. This is extremely helpful when connected to computers with a static (or known) IP address that are neither on your local network nor connected to iChat. Enjoy!