Chrome Remote Desktop is Google’s remote desktop service, often called Google Remote Desktop. It lets you see and control a Windows, Mac or Linux computer from somewhere else, using Chrome on another computer, an Android phone or tablet, or an iPhone or iPad through the website. It runs at remotedesktop.google.com, and the computer you want to reach needs Chrome Remote Desktop installed on it.
To set it up, follow how to use Chrome Remote Desktop. This page explains what it does, so you can decide whether it fits.
The two ways to use it
The site’s home page offers two buttons, Access my computer and Share my screen. They are two different jobs:
- Remote access is for your own computers. You set it up once on each computer and choose a PIN. After that, the computer stays in your list (dimmed when it is offline), and you connect by entering the PIN.
- Remote support is for helping someone, or being helped, one time. The person who needs help generates a code and sends it to the helper. Each code works once, the person sharing must click Share to let the helper in, and they are asked every 30 minutes whether to keep sharing.
Which devices it works on
- The computer you connect to can run Windows, macOS or Linux. On Linux, Google provides a 64-bit Debian package.
- From a computer, you connect in Chrome at remotedesktop.google.com/access.
- From Android, you use the Chrome Remote Desktop app on Google Play.
- From an iPhone or iPad, you use the website, which you can add to your Home Screen to use it full screen.
On a phone your screen works as a virtual trackpad. If the remote computer runs Windows, you can switch to touch input instead.
What you can do in a session
- Use the remote computer’s apps and files as if you were sitting at it.
- Copy and paste between the two devices, through a shared clipboard that an administrator can limit or turn off on managed computers.
- Move files between the two computers in a remote access session. Remote support sessions don’t support file transfer, according to Google’s policy documentation.
How secure is it?
According to Google’s help page, all remote desktop sessions are fully encrypted, and Google says the service is built with open web technologies such as WebRTC. Your own computers are protected by the PIN you choose. For remote support, nobody gets in unless you send them a code and then approve them.
Anyone you let in with remote support gets full access to your apps, files, email and history. Never read a code to someone who called you out of the blue, even if they say they are from a bank or a tech company.
Google collects some anonymized data about network delays and how long sessions last, to improve the service.
At work or school
Administrators can turn Chrome Remote Desktop on or off for their users, limit it to the local network, or block it entirely, as described in Google’s admin guide. If it doesn’t appear or won’t connect on a work or school computer, ask your IT team. On Windows Professional, Ultimate, Enterprise and Server, administrators can also turn on curtain mode, which hides the screen from anyone sitting at the computer while you’re connected.
If it is installed but won’t connect, see Chrome Remote Desktop not working.