Chrome Remote Desktop: 4 easy steps to become started

Want to sign into a estimator from another desktop or a mobile device? Here'due south how to use Google's Remote Desktop to make the connexion.

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Table of Contents
  • Using Chrome Remote Desktop to admission your own estimator
  • Using Chrome Remote Desktop to access someone else's computer

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Once upon a time, in a world not and so far away, accessing a computer remotely required all sorts of costly, complicated software and technical know-how.

These days, it's a different story. Google's free Chrome Remote Desktop service makes information technology dead-simple to get on any computer — Windows, Mac, Linux, or Chrome Os — from practically any other desktop or mobile device. You can access all of the remote system'due south contents and even click around as if you were sitting correct in front of information technology.

Chrome Remote Desktop tin can be useful for signing into your own personal or work computer from afar, and it tin be equally valuable for peeking in on someone else'southward organization — be it your co-worker'south or your mother's — to provide hands-on aid without having to be in the same location.

And all-time of all? Getting the service up and running is easy equally tin can be. In fact, all you lot need to do is decide what type of connection you desire and then consummate a couple quick steps, and yous'll be remotely connecting like nobody'southward business concern.

(Note that Chrome Remote Desktop might not work with company-managed, enterprise-level Google accounts. In that scenario, it'south up to the It department to decide.)

Using Chrome Remote Desktop to access your own computer

Step 1: Prepare the reckoner for connections

If y'all desire to be able to access your own figurer from another desktop or mobile device, start by opening upward Chrome on the host computer (or downloading and installing Chrome, if you're using a Windows, Mac, or Linux system that somehow doesn't already accept it). Within Chrome, navigate to Google'due south Chrome Remote Desktop spider web app and click the circular bluish pointer icon within the box labeled "Set upwards remote admission." (If you run into a blue button labeled "Turn On" instead of a blue arrow, congratulations: You're 1 step ahead! Skip the next paragraph, and you'll be back on rails.)

You'll then exist prompted to download the Chrome Remote Desktop extension. Click the blue "Add to Chrome" button on the page that appears and confirm that you desire to proceed. Then, go back to your original tab, and you'll detect a prompt waiting for you to name your figurer and move forward.

01 chrome remote desktop setup new JR Raphael/IDG

Yous can requite your computer any name you want, so long equally you'll recognize it. (Click whatsoever image in this story to enlarge it.)

Once you've given the reckoner a name and clicked the "Next" button, you'll exist prompted to create a Pivot with at least six digits. For security purposes, you'll need that Pivot — in add-on to being signed into your Google account — in guild to access the calculator remotely. (Google says all Remote Desktop sessions are also encrypted for extra protection.)

And that's only about it: Your operating system may pop up a alert making sure you desire to allow the app access to initiate a remote connection (and some versions of macOS may additionally require you to grant a couple permissions to Chrome Remote Desktop in System Preferences), but after you've confirmed that, the Chrome Remote Desktop tab volition prove yous that the computer is online and waiting.

The reckoner will remain available someday it's powered on and Chrome is running (and since Chrome typically starts itself automatically and runs in the background, that ways it'll probably be available someday the estimator is awake — flow). Just note that if you want connections to remain possible for an extended period of fourth dimension, y'all may have to visit your computer's power management settings to brand sure the organization won't enter hibernation manner (even if the display shuts off).

If you lot ever want to disable remote connections, just go back to remotedesktop.google.com/access or click the Chrome Remote Desktop icon to the correct of your browser'due south address bar. You can then click the trash can icon alongside your computer'due south name to remove it from the app. Alternatively, you can just uninstall the app altogether past right-clicking its icon and selecting "Remove from Chrome."

Step ii: Connect to the computer from another desktop or mobile device

Here'southward the easy part: With your host calculator all gear up for connections, all you've gotta practise to admission it from some other desktop computer is become to that same Remote Desktop website — remotedesktop.google.com/access — within the Chrome browser. You'll need to be signed into Chrome, using the same Google business relationship you lot used on the host system, but you won't need any particular apps or extensions installed; y'all'll just see your computer's proper noun appear, and you can click on it to commencement the connection.

After tapping in your Pin, you'll be in — and you tin can move around your screen, click and run annihilation you lot want, and generally merely use the computer as if yous were sitting in forepart of it. A panel at the side of the screen will provide options for adjusting the display and sending complex commands such as Ctrl-Alt-Del. It'll also permit you to synchronize the clipboards between your current figurer and the host calculator, if you're so inclined, so that you can re-create and paste text seamlessly between the two.

02 chrome remote desktop connection new JR Raphael/IDG

The host computer'due south desktop is fully accessible in a browser tab, with a collapsible panel for advanced commands.

For mobile access, y'all'll want to download the Chrome Remote Desktop app for iOS or Android. Provided your phone is signed into the aforementioned Google account you lot used on your computer, the app will automatically testify the figurer and let you lot to connect to it with one quick tap and a typing of your PIN.

You'll then be able to mouse around on your desktop using your fingers. Y'all tin scroll by sliding in any management or zoom by pinching. In the Android app, swiping downwardly from the height of the screen will reveal a control bar that'll let you switch into a trackpad mode — in which you can left-click by borer with a single finger or correct-click by tapping with ii — and switch to a keyboard mode to pull up your device'due south on-screen keyboard and enter text. In iOS, click the menu button in the lower-correct corner of the screen to access the same options.

03 chrome remote desktop smartphone new JR Raphael/IDG

Your entire desktop, at your fingertips — on your phone.

It isn't the nigh elegant style to get around a computer — and yous probably wouldn't want to utilize it for any sort of intensive piece of work — but it can be handy for quick-hitting tasks like restarting your system from afar or grabbing a file you forgot to relieve to the cloud.

Using Chrome Remote Desktop to access someone else'due south computer

Step ane: Prepare the calculator for connections

If seeing someone else's screen is what you lot're subsequently, the process for setting upward Chrome Remote Desktop is slightly different. And since you presumably won't be physically present at the host computer, you'll need to provide these instructions to the person who volition exist at that place and able to complete this part of the setup.

On the computer you want to be accessed remotely, first by going to the "Support" department of Google'due south Remote Desktop web app. Click the circular blue arrow within the box labeled "Become Support," then click "Add to Chrome" in the box that appears and confirm you want to install the Chrome Remote Desktop companion extension. (If yous don't run across the blue pointer, the extension is already installed — and you're 1 step ahead. Give yourself a pat on the dorsum and continue going.)

04 chrome remote desktop support new JR Raphael/IDG

The setup for a remote support session is slightly different, but the end effect is the same.

Become back to your original tab, and y'all'll discover a prompt instructing yous to click a "Generate Code" button in order to give someone else admission. When you exercise that, the site volition create a one-fourth dimension access lawmaking that'll remain valid for only v minutes. Share that lawmaking with the person to whom y'all want to give admission — on the phone, in an email or text message, or any works best — and then sit back and wait for their connectedness to begin.

Step two: Connect to the computer from another desktop

Once y'all have the access code and are set up to connect, simply go to remotedesktop.google.com/back up within Chrome on any other computer. Enter the access code in the "Give Support" box then click the "Connect" push to begin.

(If you want to connect from a mobile device, you'll demand to open a new tab within Chrome on your phone, check the box in the browser'south master menu to asking the desktop version of a site, and and so navigate to that aforementioned link from at that place. The Chrome Remote Desktop mobile app works but with connections that are associated with your ain Google account, so you won't be able to use it in this context.)

The person on the other terminate volition take to manually click a push button to approve the connectedness (and macOS users may likewise take to grant permissions in Organization Preferences), and then yous'll exist continued to their computer and able to click effectually and control it in the same style described in the first part of this guide.

Google still has its original version of the Chrome Remote Desktop app published and bachelor in the Chrome Web Store, past the way, but that version is now officially deprecated and no longer being actively supported or maintained. And so if you had that on your organization from previous use, now's the fourth dimension to uninstall it and move to this newer setup instead.

Not even remotely difficult — right?

This story was originally published in October 2017 and nigh recently updated in May 2020.

Copyright © 2020 IDG Communications, Inc.