Tips and shortcuts for working with Remote Desktop

Use these tips to work more quickly while using Remote Desktop to manage computers and interact with users.

Select computers from any window

Any computer in any window—report windows, task windows, computer lists, observe windows—can be a target for a task. For example, if you’re observing ten computer screens and need to send a text message to one, select the screen with a single click, then choose Interact > Send Message.

Drag items to configuration and interaction dialogs

If a configuration or interaction dialog contains a list of files or other items, such as computers, you can drag similar items to that list to add them.

Customize the Remote Desktop toolbar

Add items to the toolbar for the tasks you do the most. Choose whether to display toolbar items as text, icons, or both.

Make lists from reports or other lists

If you want to make a list based on the outcome of a report, just sort the computers in the report by the desired column, select the computers you want, and make a new list from the selection. If you double-click the list icon, you open another window containing the computers in the list. You can then easily compare the lists, or drag computers from the new list to other lists.

Save tasks and task templates to save time

Save your tasks, and duplicate them. With a little editing, you can have a number of similar tasks for specific uses. Alternatively, you can use task templates to save settings across task dialogs, applying the same settings through various tasks.

Control computers with slow network connections

When you observe or control a client computer that’s using a slow Wi-Fi or Ethernet connection, screen sharing updates might happen more slowly. To speed up screen updates, use a solid color like black or gray for the desktop of the screen you’re observing or sharing. You may also want to set the control and observe image quality to the lowest acceptable setting. You can also reduce the use of animation on remote computers. For example, you can use Dock preferences to disable animation, magnification, and automatic hiding for the Dock.