In this episode, Levi Gobin demonstrates screen sharing with VoiceOver on macOS. Levi first shows us the Screen Sharing settings in VoiceOver Utility, then demonstrates controlling another Mac using the Screen Sharing app.
Starting with macOS Tahoe 26, VoiceOver can be used to control another Mac remotely using the built-in Screen Sharing facility, either through FaceTime or Messages for controlling Macs over the Internet, or Finder or the Screen Sharing app (located in the Utilities folder) for controlling Macs on your local network. When controlling another Mac, VoiceOver can be configured to use a different voice or cursor color, in order to differentiate your Mac from the remote one.
Transcript
Disclaimer: This transcript was generated by AI Note Taker – VoicePen, an AI-powered transcription app. It is not edited or formatted, and it may not accurately capture the speakers’ names, voices, or content.
Levi: Hello, everyone. And in this podcast, I'm going to demonstrate the newly introduced screen sharing feature that was introduced in Mac OS 26. This feature allows you to remotely control another Mac and hear VoiceOver through that Mac, as if you were at that Mac. You can even select a different voice, or if you have low vision, change the cursor color. I'm going to first talk about the settings for screen sharing, and you can get to those by going to VoiceOver Utility with Control Option Function F8, or just Control Option F8, depending on your keyboard.
VoiceOver: Opening VoiceOver Utility. Voice over utility, voice over utility, utility categories, row 1 of 12, general, selected, has keyboard focus.
Levi/VoiceOver: So now we're in voiceover utility, and as you hear, it says general. And the easiest way to get to this is to interact with the table. In utility categories. And then press control, option, function, right arrow, or control, option, end on a desktop keyboard. Screen sharing, row 12 of 12. And there you are. Out of utility categories. So here you have the following options. You can use voiceover to control another Mac using screen sharing. Open screen sharing button. And that's one way you could open the screen sharing app. When interacting with a shared screen, heading. When interacting with a shared screen. No change. Speech pitch. Pop-up button. So if you wanted to, you could raise or lower the pitch. Menu. Three items. Checkmark. No change. Lower pitch. Lower pitch. Checkmark. No change. Raise pitch. Raise pitch. Checkmark. No change. Closing menu.
Levi: I like it set to no change. And that's what I have the voice set to for screen sharing. I have it set to something different usually, but that's... You can also... You can have a default or any voice in your voice router. And this is the color of the voiceover cursor if you have low vision. So this controls how you want to switch back to controlling your device. The options are... So you can stop interacting and depending on the setting that will either stay in the shared screen or that will exit.
Levi/VoiceOver: Menu, two items, check marks, days, and shared screen. Check marks, leaves, shared screen. Check marks, days, and shared screen. Closing. I like I said to that, and the way you return to your local device is control option, command shift R. You can always leave the shared screen by pressing control option, command shift R. All commands control remote device. If remote device has voiceover on, pop up button.
Levi: So this, I'm assuming, is like Command-O for open or Command-N for new and all that. From my testing with another friend who I've done this with, that does not seem to work. And those are your voiceover visuals. And that would show you the help article already to screen sharing. Okay, so now how do you actually connect to someone's device? There are several ways of doing it, but the way I do it is over the network via screen sharing and Tailscale. You can also connect to somebody else's Mac via iCloud by entering their Apple ID. In the messages app, I'm not really too familiar with those messages, so I'll show you how I use the actual screen sharing app to connect. So you can either go to your utilities folder in Finder within the applications folder and open the screen sharing app, or if you're already in Voice of Retail, you can use that open screen sharing button, which is what I'll do right now.
VoiceOver: You can open screen sharing button. Screen sharing, all connections, table, no selection, has keyboard focus.
Levi: So here we are on the screen sharing app, and I have several devices I've controlled already. If you haven't, this table would probably be empty.
VoiceOver: You could press Command N to add a new connection. Host name or Apple account now in screen sharing. Connect to edit text.
Levi: And here you'd type in your host name, like the IP address, or you could type in somebody's Apple account. I'm not going to do that.
Levi: I'm just going to click cancel. You can also click connect. I'm going to be connecting to my friend Nico's Mac Mini. He's given me permission to connect to his Mac. Okay, so now I'm going to do VO shift M on the Mac. Okay. And I'm going to click enter on connect. So before it said now in window connecting, but it connected before it finished. Now it's asking me if I want to enable the accessibility features on the shared screen. Okay.
Levi/VoiceOver: voiceover on switch so you can turn that off but i don't know what that would do for me i've not messed around with that reduce motion on switch on switch that's the only other accessibility feature i currently have on and i just have that on the safe battery life but if you had like voice control or something else enabled that would that would probably show up in here as well out of table voiceover will not be seen or heard by anyone in front of the remote mac reduce motion can be seen by anyone in front of the remote mac
VoiceOver: Show all button. Show all. Show active only. Cancel. Show active voice. Cable. Into voiceover. On switch. Zoom. Dim off switch. Increase. Dim off. Reduce mode. On switch. Differentiate. Dim off. Reduce. Dim off. Toolbar. Dim off. Dim off switch.
Levi: Okay, I don't know why some of these are dimmed, but you can click the show all button and find all the accessibility features that can be enabled.
Levi/VoiceOver: Out of voiceover. Show active only. Button. Cancel. Okay. Default button. And then we click okay. Nico's Mac Mini. Shared control mode. Shared screen. And now we're in the shared screen window. Toolbar. Niko's full screen. Niko's Mac Mini. So here it says the name of the device. Toolbar. In toolbar. Eight items. Control screen selected. You can control. Dynamic resolution is not available with a standard connection dimmed. That's because I'm using network connection, and I believe that's just for visuals anyway. High dynamic range over screen sharing is not available with a standard connection dimmed. apps button apps that these buttons would open the relevant window on the remote mac mission control button desktop button zoom group in zoom group three items zoom out button zoom to actual size button zoom in button that's for your visual zooming out of zoom zoom to fit button zoom to fit button Out of toolbar. Miko's Mac Mini. Shared control mode. Shared screen. Miko's Mac Mini. Shared control mode. Shared screen. So once I interact with this, we're going to be hearing his Mac with the Nicky voice that I selected earlier. Now control. Miko's Mac Mini. Shared control mode. Shared screen.
VoiceOver: Application. Popover. But messages.
Levi: Okay, that's his messages. I do not want to read those.
VoiceOver: Quit messages.
Levi: Okay, so now I should be on his desktop. Yep, I am. Okay, so now I am on his Mac, and I can control his Mac as if it was my own. I can go to the Apple menu. I could open System Preferences, System Settings. And just to show you that it's really his Mac.
VoiceOver: Mac Mini, 2023. Apple M2.
Levi: There's his M2 Mac Mini.
VoiceOver: Memory. 16 GB. Startup disk.
Levi: And say you suddenly want to control your device, you can press Control Option Command Shift R. Now controlling local device.
VoiceOver: Toolbar. Nico's Mac Mini. Toolbar. Nico's Mac Mini. Shared control mode. Shared screen.
Levi: And now I'm back on my device, and if I want to go back to his device, I Control Option Shift Down Arrow here. Now controlling shared screen.
VoiceOver: System information startup disk. Text is in the voiceover cursor.
Levi: And it lets you know it's in your VoiceOver cursor. So I'm going to close this window.
VoiceOver: Close button.
Levi: And it's literally just like a regular Mac, but you're controlling somebody else's Mac instead of yours. It's really cool. It's integrated within VoiceOver, which is really nice. Previously, before this feature existed, The way I would control his Mac if I needed to was... He would have something called TeamTalk open. And he would route his audio through TeamTalk through Loopback. Sort of like what I'm doing for this recording. And then I would connect to the TeamTalk server where that was being hosted. And then I would open the screen sharing app and connect to his Mac. And that introduced audio latency. But this, there's not really a lot of latency. I can navigate pretty quickly. Um...
VoiceOver: Apple. About this Mac. App Store. Recent items. App Store. System settings. Two updates.
Levi: Looks like he has two updates. I can even update his Mac from here if I wanted to.
VoiceOver: Closing menu. System settings. Now in. Window. Sidebar. Roll up in the vertical scroll area. Manage about software update button.
Levi: So, yeah, it is his Mac. It's not mine. It's his. I could check for updates if I wanted to. So, yeah, I mean, it allows you to control anyone's Mac you have access to. Oops, I accidentally quit something. Yeah, so it allows you to control any... It allows you to control his Mac and take full control of it. And the other person can interact with... The other person can interact with their device. And they can do things too. And you'll hear whatever they do on their Mac. Okay. So that's a quick look at screen sharing. I hope you found this useful, and we'll see you in the next podcast. Thank you for listening.