Apple released macOS 10.15 Catalina on October 7, 2019. This release has stricter security requirements that require explicit permission to allow applications to have control.
For Mac Streamer v3.3.2.0 or above, these are the additional accessibility settings that are required to be set to allow the Splashtop software to provide remote access:
Four options under System Preferences / Security & Privacy / Privacy need to be checked for a remote session to work normally. Note that these security settings cannot be configured remotely - you must change these settings once locally before being able to establish a remote session.
Also, please note that if these are already checked, uncheck and recheck them. Users have reported that this action prompts the permissions to reset if they weren't working before.
- Accessibility (affects control) – The option is available on macOS 10.14 Mojave and needs to be checked to enable remote control. This is the same with 10.15. For OS upgrade cases, if you already have the option checked on 10.14 , you don’t need to configure it again on 10.15. For new streamer installs on 10.15, this setting needs to be checked so remote control is enabled.
- If this setting was done in Mojave before upgrading to Catalina, you may need to delete (-) the Accessibility setting for Splashtop Streamer, then re-add (+) and check it.
- Full Disk Access (affects file transfer) – The option is available on macOS 10.14 Mojave but does not need to be checked. Now, it needs to be checked to use File Transfer on 10.15. If not checked, files/folders of the remote Mac will not be shown in the file transfer window.
- Screen Recording (affects remote connection) – The option is not available on macOS 10.14 Mojave. Now, it needs to be checked to establish a remote session on 10.15. If not, you will not be able to establish a remote session and there will be a popup on the streamer computer (you CANNOT configure this remotely):
- Microphone (affects sound stream) – The option is available on macOS 10.14 Mojave and needs to be checked to stream sound over remote connection. This is the same on 10.15. However, Soundflower does not work on 10.15 - you can’t stream sound even when checking Microphone.
For audio, please note: On all MacOS versions, remote sessions connecting to a computer at the pre-login state (when there is no user account that is logged into) will not be able to send audio over the remote session. To fix this, log into a user account on the computer, and then disconnect the Splashtop remote session, but do not log out of the user account. Then, when you reconnect, you'll hear audio.Second note: Most of these settings only apply to the user account on which they are granted. If you have multiple user accounts on a device, you will need to grant permissions on each.
Mac Streamer v3.3.4.0 and later require the same settings as above. Additionally:
- With Mac Streamer v3.3.4.0, there is a helper upon new installations which guides users to check these four options. This helper will not pop up in upgrade cases (there is a badge button on 3.3.4.0 streamer UI to manually open the helper).
- Soundflower works to provide audio streaming with macOS 10.15 Catalina.
- Remote access can connect at the login screen with macOS 10.15 Catalina.