If you use several Macs at the same time, its very impractical to keep changing keyboard and mouse. Teleport is a simple preference pane utility that allows you to use one single mouse and keyboard to control several of your Macs.
Sharing Keyboard and Mouse between Mac’s with Teleport
Once it has been setup, all you have to do is drag your mouse to the edge of the screen and the mouse will automatically Teleport to the other Mac.Installation is just a case of selecting whether to share your Mac, and then arranging it which order you'd like them to appear. You can even synchronize the pasteboard between the computers.The most useful thing in Teleport is that you can drag and drop files between machines simply by switching the mouse cursor to a different screen.
The secret of Teleport is Bonjour which it uses to find available hosts and Macs on a network. It's ideal for Mac Mini owners who don't have a keyboard or mouse to use with it, or want to exchange data between their Mini and regular Mac.
Within the Options tab, you can assign a keyboard shortcut to enable screen switching, customize the delay between switching screens andalso configure support for dragging and dropping files between Macs. You can also specify a rule to limit how large pasted files can be, if you plan to copy and paste between Macs.
teleport lets you use a single mouse and keyboard to control several Macs. Simply reach an edge of your screen, and your mouse teleports to your nearby Mac, which also becomes controlled by your keyboard.
Yes, they are. I don't think teleport would work if they were not. It's too long a story to tell about how I wound up with two new iMacs when I have been getting along quite well using another display for more screen space, but neither of these iMac can be used in target disk mode. But take for example right now. The newest iMac will not allow me to open Mail, so I have to go back and forth from the iMac right in front of me to check Mail on the other one with the same keyboard and mouse. It's **** when teleport won't work because of the desk configuration. It's hard for me to use another keyboard and mouse over there.
Indeed this seems like overkill for the problem. Mail is particularly peculiar today, and the situation is different for both iMacs; however, for now I want to stick to Teleport itself. On one computer there is now only one icon at the top (presumably for the latest Teleport software), and on the other one, there are still two icons. I needed to use Teleport today, after restarting last night, and it didn't work. So restarting still causes it to drop the connection between the two. I was using my trackball as usual when I almost accidentally discovered that Teleport would work with the Apple mouse. I continued to experiment, and while it has always worked with whatever mouse device I was using, almost always the trackball, today it will only work with the mouse. What do you make of that? And can you perhaps suggest a fix since I much prefer the trackball, and in fact, don't have much room on my desk to deal with a mouse anyway.
Thanks. I will check it out. Most of these type of apps are for PC. I've tried at least one other one and did not like it. Teleport has been working though it is does not retain the connection after a restart. Someone here advised a way to make it remember, but it was complicated. Still, I wouldn't know why it would not continue to work with my trackball if it does indeed work with the mouse.
I was able to share the screen via Connect to Server. But this is not the same as Teleport. I wanted to be able to move docs and folders between the macs. I have now discovered that the keyboard will not work via Teleport either. I wonder if I can go back to the previous version of Teleport, which was working, although it would lost it's connection. But that is better than not working at all.
Currently, I use a USB keyboard and mouse for my work computer and a Bluetooth keyboard and Magic Mouse + Magic Trackpad for use with my personal computer. I'd like to get rid of the wired keyboard and mouse and just use the Bluetooth stuff for both machines (but never simultaneously).
The trouble is with the devices, the Apple mouse and the keyboard in your case. They don't pair with more than one BlueTooth host at a time. You need a BlueTooth host that's "central" to both Macs if you want to use them.
You can find KVM switches that have BlueTooth host receivers in them. For example, the Zonet KVM3322W (dead link) worked over USB and provided BlueTooth receiver capabilities. I cannot attest to how well that would work. Presumably you'd pair the keyboard and mouse with the BlueTooth receiver in the KVM instead of in either Mac and then using the keyboard shortcuts, switch between control of the Macs who are connected to the KVM via USB. How the Macs would respond to the BlueTooth receiver in the KVM coming and going as you switched between them is unclear to me. Could be they handle it just fine.
The other option is to seek out BlueTooth accessories that allow themselves to be paired with more than one host. And then switch between those hosts from hardware keys on them. For example, this keyboard+trackpad combo from IOGear supports switching between 6 BlueTooth hosts. So you'd pair it with both Macs and the use the keyboard switches to decide which one you were talking to at any point in time. That, to me, seems like the more reliable approach. Of course: now you're stuck using IOGear's keyboard instead of the Apple peripherals.
Now, when I want to switch from my main computer to my MacBook Pro, I put the main computer to sleep and wake up the second one. The bluetooth keyboard and mouse both switch over to the laptop and away I go. When I want to return to the main computer, I put the laptop to sleep and wake the Mac Mini using its power button.
I simply turn Bluetooth off on the device I'm not using them on, so my solution assumes you have no other need for Bluetooth simultaneously. Both the keyboard and trackpad happily pair with multiple devices. It all works great and I don't need to power cycle the keyboard and Bluetooth . Simply toggling Bluetooth on the MBPs in a proper order works well. Turn off Bluetooth on the current computer you are using them with then turn on Bluetooth on the other. They will connect after a few seconds and you are ready to rock!
I've wrestled with this issue myself - the solution that works for me is to use one of the non-Bluetooth wireless keyboards that has its own USB dongle. That way, the wireless connection is between the Bluetooth dongle and the keyboard, which is pre-paired at the factory. As far as the KVM is concerned, it is just a plain USB keyboard.
The problem with any switching solution, hardware or software is there is a lag between 5 and 10 seconds. So if your intending on switching back and forth quickly between platforms you may not be satisfied with the time requirement to switch back and forth.
I have a IO gear hardware switch for the past 3 years and it takes about 5 seconds each time to switch back and forth with the mouse and keyboard. So I have a wired keyboard for when I need to switch back and forth quickly for pits and pieces of what I'm working on.
So that's it. Now you can use the iMac as a display with keyboard and mouse connected to the MacBook. When you've done, just disconnect the cable and the app will return everything as it was (disable/enable Bluetooth, press Cmd+F2). Please note, that the app will disable Bluetooth on the MacBook, otherwise keyboard and mouse can't be connected back to the iMac. If you need Bluetooth enabled on the both devices, you've to switch it on manually.
I'm able to do a quick switchover by momentarily connecting the mouse (or keyboard) to the new computer via a lightning cable. Just connect the device like you're going to charge it, disconnect the cable, and the device connects to the computer.
You can use the GKMB01 Bluetooth Desktop Dock from IOGEAR to do this job if you are not physically moving the keyboard away from the area. The GKMB01 connects between one computer and your USB keyboard/mouse, then switches the keyboard and mouse function between the hard wired computer and two additional Bluetooth devices such as your iMac with a quick double tap of the OPT key.
I have built a little open source project which allows to connect you wired and wireless HID keyboards and mice to Raspberry Pi Zero W ($10/10) which then presents itself as a bluetooth keyboard+mouse device to you machines and channels input to an active host. you can switch an active host with a key combination. supports key remapping. Python implementation, easy to customise.
I couldn't get VirtualKVM to work. Followed the instructions above, installed fine, used up to date version, but when I plugged in the thunderbolt cable and it mirrored automatically, the iMac never gave up the keyboard and mouse Bluetooth connection.
You can't turn Bluetooth off on the iMac, because it wants the keyboard and mouse connected to maintain control, but you can delete the keyboard and mouse from the list of Bluetooth devices. Just remember to delete the keyboard first so you still have mouse control to delete the mouse.
I had exactly the same problem, universal control was working beautifully between my MacBook Air and Mac mini (M1). Last week I could not make them connect again. I rebooted both devices multiple times. I wonder if the latest iOS update what is the problem? Does anyone have any ideas? Maybe rebooting is not as effective as putting the devices to sleep? I would appreciate any help because I was getting great productivity boost using my MacBook Air keyboard and track pad to control my Mac mini which sits on the back of my desk with a very large display. Previously I was putting my MacBook Air to the side while pulling out the keyboard and trackpad for the Mac mini now I just put the MacBook Air on the desktop in front of the Mac mini and go to work on both devices without shuffling them around. Please tell me there is a solution to get this option running again. 2ff7e9595c
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