Remote Control

Remote Control lets VMPal on your Mac show another Mac's screen and use its mouse and keyboard. It's an alternative to Screen Sharing and TeamViewer: the connection goes straight from Mac to Mac over SSH, with no account and no server in between, and the other Mac decides what you may do there.

Both Macs need VMPal 0.94 or later. Below, "the remote Mac" is the one you want to control, and "your Mac" is the one you sit at.

Set up the remote Mac

On the remote Mac, open VMPal, then VMPal › Settings › Remote Control.
Turn on the switch at the top. It asks for your password or Touch ID. From then on, VMPal opens when you log in there, so you can connect after the Mac restarts.
If VMPal says Remote Login is off, click Open Sharing Settings… and turn on Remote Login in General › Sharing. It needs an administrator. VMPal connects over it.
Under Features, allow what macOS asks for: Screen Recording, to see the screen, and Accessibility, to use the mouse and keyboard.

How to connect shows what to type on your Mac: the computer's name, its local and internet addresses, the account, and its host key, with a Copy button for each.

You can sign in with the account's password. A key is safer: it opens VMPal on the remote Mac and nothing else, never a shell.

On the remote Mac, under SSH key, click Create Key….
Click Copy Private Key, and paste it on your Mac when you add the computer.

Connect from your Mac

In VMPal, choose File › Add Computer….
Type the remote Mac's name or address, such as studio-mac.local or 192.168.1.20, and its Account.
Choose how to sign in: Password, or Key with Paste key (the key you copied), a Key file, or your own keys (SSH config).
Click Continue. The first time, check that the host key VMPal shows is the one in How to connect on the remote Mac, then trust it.
The first time, approve the connection on the remote Mac. VMPal there asks whether your Mac may use it: choose Allow…, then your password or Touch ID.

The remote Mac then shows in VMPal's list. Open it to see its screen and use it as if you sat at it.

The window

Quality, the dial in the toolbar: Auto mode, the default, or your own Stream quality and Stream FPS. The quality slider's top is Retina, the remote Mac's own pixels.
Under the Mac's name: how fast the screen comes, and the delay, such as "1.2 MB/s · 4 ms".
If the network drops or changes, VMPal reconnects on its own for up to 5 minutes, the last picture dimmed meanwhile.

How Auto works

Always the remote Mac's own pixels. On a Retina Mac, that's Retina, scaled only to fit your window.
Exact when the network keeps up. As long as pictures arrive quickly, every change is sent exact, so text is pixel-perfect.
Softer before smaller. On a slow network, pictures get softer, then fewer a second. The resolution stays.
Video for movement. A window you drag, or a video playing, goes as video. Once the screen is still, whatever was soft is sent again, sharp.

What other Macs may do

Under Features on the remote Mac, each switch says what VMPal on another Mac may do there. Turning one on asks for your password or Touch ID.

Switch	At first
See the screen	On
Read windows and controls	On
Use the mouse and keyboard	On
Run commands as your account	On
Receive files	On
Keep this Mac awake while a Mac is connected	On
Run administrator commands	Off
Restart and shut down	Off

Approved clients lists the Macs you allowed. Remove one, and it asks again the next time. Turn on Ask me before each connection to approve every connection, not only the first. The activity at the bottom shows each connection, refusal and approval.

Unattended access

For a Mac nobody sits at, turn on Unattended access, under the switch at the top of Settings › Remote Control. It asks for your password or Touch ID, and needs Remote Control on. Then the remote Mac:

Stays awake while it's on power. On battery, it sleeps as usual, and you can't connect while it sleeps.
Wakes its display when you connect.
Shows a checklist of what else it needs, each with a button to fix it: Wake for network access, what happens After a restart, and Screen Sharing.

After a restart

VMPal runs once you've logged in to the remote Mac. After a restart, that depends on the Mac:

With automatic login (in Users & Groups), the Mac logs you in by itself, VMPal opens, and you can connect. macOS allows automatic login only with FileVault off.
Without it, the Mac waits at its login window. VMPal on your Mac says so and shows Open Screen Sharing: log in there once with Apple's Screen Sharing. VMPal keeps trying for 10 minutes, and connects as soon as you're in. Turn on Screen Sharing on the remote Mac for this, in General › Sharing.
With FileVault on, the Mac first waits for its password before macOS starts. On macOS 26 or later with Apple silicon, unlock it over SSH from Terminal on your Mac, with ssh account@address and the account's password. Then log in once with Screen Sharing.

Over the internet

On your network, use the remote Mac's name or local address.
From elsewhere, use its internet address, which How to connect shows. Your router has to forward port 22 to the remote Mac.
Through a VPN or a tunnel, use what you'd use for SSH in Terminal. VMPal connects with your Mac's own ssh, so hosts, jump hosts and proxies in ~/.ssh/config work. For example, a Cloudflare Tunnel to the remote Mac's SSH, with cloudflared on your Mac:

Host studio-mac.example.com
  ProxyCommand /opt/homebrew/bin/cloudflared access ssh --hostname %h

Good to know

Safe by design. The connection is SSH, encrypted end to end. VMPal checks the remote Mac's host key each time, and refuses one that changed. Each Mac is approved once, on the remote Mac, and every switch you turn on asks for your password or Touch ID.
Screen Recording each month. macOS asks again every month whether VMPal may still record the screen. Choose Allow on the remote Mac.
Turning it off. Turn off the switch at the top of Settings › Remote Control to refuse every connection at once, including the ones open now.