If you haven’t used macOS’s screen sharing, it’s quite simple: When logged in, two overlapping rectangles in the system bar appear, and reveal information (right). (Big Sur offers more visible and obvious signs of remote screen sharing, as one of the subtle security improvements Apple added.) IDGīig Sur tells you on the login screen if there’s an active remote session (left). With Big Sur, I recently noticed that when I was unable to connect from one machine, the one that wouldn’t share stated it was being controlled by my other Mac already. I have two Macs in my house on the same network-one a laptop, one a desktop-and it’s often the case that the two can see each other and mount each other’s drives, yet can’t initiate screen sharing.
It’s a sad thing that after so many years of offering screen sharing as a native feature in OS X and then macOS, the remote-access service remains unreliable.
