IMac – Screen sharing without allowing others to access the account

imacmacbook proscreensharing

I sometimes work from home (MacbookPro-10.6.8) and would like to screen share with my iMac(10.9) at work. The screen-sharing is easy enough, but I share an office with several other people. To put it nicely, my coworkers haven't grown up yet… When I work remotely they are able to see what I am doing, then go to my desk, take control of my mouse/keyboard, make changes to my code "as a prank", etc. It's quite frustrating to say the least. Is there anyway to screen share without allowing someone else to have direct access to my work?

(Someone mentioned to me that there's a way of having a dummy user's account show up on the iMac while I'm working on my own account, but they weren't sure how to do this-and I can't seem to find anything about it. Any ideas?) Thanks!

Best Answer

Yes - the Apple Remote Desktop app allows you to curtain the controlled computer to lock out anyone that's physically at the computer while you work remotely.

You could also set your work Mac to boot to a harmless account that auto logs in and is not an administrator. When you use OS X screen sharing (as opposed to Remote Desktop) it will ask you if you want to share screen with the "dummy" user and you can decline and start your own session that isn't visible locally.

Try the second unless you want to invest in the Remote Desktop tool or can't add a second user due to work constraints.