Why using Remote Desktop is helpful
This video is brought to you by Woven.
Woven lets you access all of your calendars in one place and gives you powerful scheduling tools to help you save time.
Stay tuned to the end of the video to learn more.
Wouldn't it be great if you could access your office computer or perhaps your home computer from anywhere in the world?
Well, you can, and it's actually a lot easier than you think.
In today's video, we're taking a look at Chrome Remote Desktop by Google, and I'm gonna show you everything that you need to know.
Hello, everyone. Scott Friesen here at Simpletivity, helping you to get more done and enjoy less stress.
And first, I'm gonna show you why you may want to do this, and then I'm gonna show you the how, so you can set this up yourself.
Accessing another computer with Chrome Remote Desktop
So here we are at remotedesktop.google.com, and I've already set this up with my home computer. That's why you see this DESKTOP-Home.
I'm actually on my laptop at the moment, but let's say that there's a particular file that I want to get to, or maybe there's an actual application that I don't have installed on my laptop, and I need to use it for just a few minutes.
All I need to do, once you are set up, is to click on this.
And what's gonna happen is it's going to reach out to that computer.
Now, you get to create your own custom security PIN, so only you can have access to this.
And now, in just a few seconds here, I am within my home computer.
Now, on the right-hand side, you can see that there's this little blue arrow. This is gonna be very helpful because if we put this into full screen, it's just a little more comfortable to see here.
But this is actually the desktop of my home computer.
And let's say that there's a particular photo, maybe an image that I didn't upload to Google Photos or Dropbox or the Cloud in some way, I can only access it here.
Maybe it's this one here, this picture of a very, very, very old Scott.
How to download & upload files with Chrome Remote Desktop
So, all I need to do is if I come over here back and expand this little menu, I'm gonna scroll down and file transfer, I think it's probably one of the most helpful features when you are remoting into another computer.
So, in this case, I wanna download that file. I'm gonna select download the file.
We're gonna get a pretty standard dialogue menu here. I'm gonna select that particular photo, I'm going to hit open.
And now, what's happening is that it has downloaded that file to my laptop.
Let me go out of full screen, just so you know this for certain.
So, here's the view of my home computer, but you can see down below this is actually on the laptop.
I've downloaded that file from my home computer here to the laptop.
And, if we go back to this blue menu on the right-hand side, you can see that we can do it the opposite way as well.
Maybe there's something on my laptop computer that I would like to have on my home computer.
Well, I can do that here as well.
But, remember, you're not just limited to files.
Using an application on a remote computer
Because sometimes, maybe, there's a particular application that you need access to. Maybe it's a very large application, something that you just need to quickly download something from or edit something from.
I'll just use a very, very simple example here. I'm gonna open up Open Office.
So, here, you can see the application is actually opening up here and I can start writing this document because maybe I don't have Open Office on my laptop for some reason, and I need a particular feature or need to edit a document right here.
I can do that. I can save the file and then transfer it to my laptop computer if needed.
And when I'm all done, all I need to do is go over here and hit disconnect.
And I will be returned, right here, to the Chrome Remote Desktop screen.
How to setup Chrome Remote Desktop
So, let's take a look at the second step here so that you can set this up for yourself.
I'm just gonna go out of the full screen view here for a second.
Where you're gonna want to go is remotedesktop.google.com.
And that's gonna bring you to a screen like this. Or you can just type in Chrome Remote Desktop, and this will be your first search result.
Now, what we need to do is set this up.
So, if I want to be able to access this laptop, the computer that I'm on right now, I need to come down here to say this device.
This is what we've set up already, right? These are the remote devices that I can access in the future, but I need to set up this remote device.
So, I'm gonna come down here and say, "turn on."
And it's going to ask me to choose a particular name.
Now, I want to add something here that's a little more descriptive, right? So, I’m gonna say something like, I don't know, maybe "personal" or something along those lines, so I know which laptop it is.
Maybe I want to put my name beside it or something along those lines so I can identify it.
I'm gonna hit next here, and the second step we're gonna have here is to choose a PIN.
Now, it suggests that we choose a PIN that's at least six numbers in length. It does have to be numerical. Of course, the longer you create it, the more secure it's going to be.
So, let me just type in one here. It's gonna ask us to reenter it one more time.
And by default, this is usually checked. I'm gonna uncheck it and you can choose what is best for you. If you don't want to send information back to Google, you can uncheck this box.
And I'm going to hit start.
So, we can choose to save this password if we need to.
And here you can see now, we have this device.
So, now, if I go back and I do it in reverse, if I go back to my home computer, for example, or really, if I go into almost any other computer, I can come back and log into my laptop.
Important notice about using Remote Desktop
Now, the one thing to keep in mind is that the computer you are trying to access must be on and online. It cannot be shut down or off. We are not able to turn a computer on remotely. It already has to be on, and it probably goes without saying that it’s already connected to the internet.
So, here, you can see that both my home computer and the one I'm currently on are online. So, I can go ahead and access it.
Now, one other feature that you may find helpful is remote support. If you click on this option here, you can actually let someone else access this computer and generate a one-time access code.
This can be great in a support situation or if you happen to provide some type of tech consulting. You can use this to remotely access another computer.
Now, if you'd like to access all of your calendars in one place, I recommend that you check out Woven. Woven allows you to bring in all of your Google and Microsoft calendars into a single view. They also allow you to create custom tags, so you can keep track of everything you’re doing in a given week.
I especially like their template feature, so I don’t have to type out the same thing again and again. It also comes with some very powerful scheduling tools, so you don’t have to use third-party apps.
If you’d like to check out Woven for yourself, go to woven.com or see the link in the description below.
