Use Remote Desktop

Control Windows and macOS devices remotely: permissions, consent, codecs and connection quality.

Use Remote Desktop

Remote Desktop lets you view and control Windows and macOS devices directly in the octoja web interface. You do not need an RDP client or a VPN.

Prerequisites

The device is online and runs the octoja agent for Windows or macOS. Remote Desktop on a Mac requires macOS 14 or newer and a user signed in to the graphical desktop.
On the Mac, grant the agent Screen & System Audio Recording under System Settings → Privacy & Security. Mouse and keyboard control also requires Accessibility. Without recording permission, capture cannot start; without input permission, the session is view-only.
Your account belongs to a group whose Device Access grants the Remote Desktop action — enable it under Administration → Groups → Device Access → Allowed actions.
You are signed in to octoja in a Chromium-based browser — Chrome or Edge. Remote Desktop plays its video stream through the browser's WebCodecs APIs, which those browsers provide.

Steps

Go to Devices and open the device you want to control.
Click the top-right icon with the Remote Desktop tooltip. The Remote Desktop tab opens in the Toolbox window. Check the device name and, if assigned, customer in the window title.
To add another session from a Toolbox window that is already open, click the + (New Tab) button next to the tab strip and choose Remote Desktop.
Pick a session: Windows offers the console and available RDP user sessions; macOS offers the signed-in user's console. A locked Windows session carries a Locked badge. Without a consent requirement, selection starts connecting immediately. Otherwise choose Request consent and wait for the user to approve. Connect without consent requires the additional Bypass Remote-Desktop Consent device action and a recorded reason. To answer a consent prompt on a locked Windows desktop, the user must unlock it first; then refresh the session list and select the session again.
Wait for the first frame, which appears within a couple of seconds. The Settings menu reports what is actually running — H.264 active, 15 fps active. If the stream stutters, see Fix picture problems below.
Use the surface as you would a local desktop. Mouse and keyboard input is forwarded to the device. On Windows, Ctrl+Alt+Del has its own button. Send keys offers Esc, Windows key, Win+R, Alt+F4, Print Screen and Lock for Windows; Esc and Lock for macOS.
To end the session, close the toolbox tab or the whole toolbox window. The session ends cleanly on both sides. To return to the session list without leaving the tab, click Switch session — the back arrow at the left of the toolbar; Reconnect beside it restarts the stream.

Tip: If no session is available, check the sign-in on the target device and click Refresh. On a Mac, a user must be signed in to the graphical desktop; an SSH login alone is not enough.

When the user at the physical Windows console signs out, octoja reconnects the stream to the login screen after a brief interruption. You can continue signing in there. If a different session disappears, octoja returns to session selection: choose an available target rather than retrying a user session that no longer exists.

With the remote surface focused, Ctrl+Shift+X types clipboard contents as keystrokes; Ctrl+Shift+M switches to the next display when more than one is available. On a Mac, use Cmd instead of Ctrl for those shortcuts. Ctrl+Alt+End sends Ctrl+Alt+Del to a Windows target. On Windows, the pointer follows the remote context, such as text entry or resizing.

Tools and settings

Frame rate — choose Auto (picks a frame rate based on the agent machine's capability), 10 fps (lowest bandwidth, fine for admin work), 15 fps (good interactive default), or 30 fps (smoothest, needs a capable agent and network).
Codec — Auto selects a codec supported by your browser and device. On Windows, octoja prefers WmfH264, then NativeVp9, before falling back to the other codecs. NativeVp9 does not require Windows Media Foundation. macOS offers H.264 or HEVC. An explicitly selected, unsupported codec is not silently replaced: select Auto again in that case.
Resolution — changes the remote Windows device's display resolution. This setting is not available on macOS.
Lock remote on disconnect — enable this in the settings menu to lock the device when the last technician disconnects, even after an unexpected browser closure. The toggle starts from the device's Auto-lock after remote desktop setting. Changes apply to every technician in the same session.
Display picker — switch between monitors when the device has more than one.
Send keys — the keys for each target platform described in Step 6.
Clipboard sync — toggle Enable clipboard sync to share clipboard contents between your browser and the remote session; a status indicator shows whether the channel is active or blocked.
Paste — pastes your clipboard contents on the remote. Use it when your browser will not sync the clipboard on its own.
Type Clipboard — types the current clipboard contents on the remote as keystrokes. Made for secure desktops (UAC, login screen) where pasting is blocked.
Drop to upload — this also requires the File Browser device action; see Transfer and extract files. Drag a file from your desktop onto the surface to upload it to the signed-in user's Downloads folder on the device. After a successful upload to a supported Windows agent, click Show in Explorer in the confirmation to select the file in Explorer in that user's remote session. Older agents and macOS do not offer this action.
OCR (Search screen text) — drag a box over text on the remote screen, then pick Copy text or Search with Google. Text recognition runs in your browser.
Statistics — open the stats menu to inspect bandwidth, keyframe share, frame size and playback (painted versus received frames, and the decoder backlog) for the current stream.
Latency — in the same stats menu, click Measure: octoja flashes the remote screen red and times the round-trip until your browser sees red pixels, giving you an end-to-end latency reading.
Fullscreen — expand the surface to fill the browser window; press Esc or click Exit fullscreen to return.

Fix picture problems

Most picture problems in a session can be fixed from the Settings menu (the gear icon in the toolbar). Switching codecs can rebuild the stream, so give it a few seconds before judging the result.

On Windows, try WmfH264 or NativeVp9, especially on low-powered devices or slow or unstable connections. These codecs can make the session smoother and more responsive: octoja continuously adjusts frame rate and bitrate to device performance, the connection and browser playback. The configured frame rate is a ceiling, not a guaranteed rate. The size of the improvement depends on the device and connection.

When you switch to another browser tab or minimize the browser window, the browser reports that the Remote Desktop tab is no longer visible. With these two codecs, octoja then pauses video delivery to your browser without ending the session. Delivery resumes when you return to the tab. Other technicians with visible tabs can continue watching the session.

Symptom	What to do
The stream stutters or the frame rate is low on a slow connection	Open Settings → Frame rate and pick a lower value, or try a different codec under Settings → Codec. Wait a few seconds after each change — the switch does not take effect immediately.
The screen resolution on the device itself changed and did not come back	The Resolution setting really switches the display resolution on the remote device, not just in the stream. The agent remembers each display's mode before the first change and restores it when the last technician disconnects, so a change normally undoes itself. The restore is best-effort — if Windows rejects the old mode, the agent logs it and leaves the display as it is, so set the resolution back manually in that case.

Symptom

What to do

The stream stutters or the frame rate is low on a slow connection

Open Settings → Frame rate and pick a lower value, or try a different codec under Settings → Codec. Wait a few seconds after each change — the switch does not take effect immediately.

The screen resolution on the device itself changed and did not come back

The Resolution setting really switches the display resolution on the remote device, not just in the stream. The agent remembers each display's mode before the first change and restores it when the last technician disconnects, so a change normally undoes itself. The restore is best-effort — if Windows rejects the old mode, the agent logs it and leaves the display as it is, so set the resolution back manually in that case.

An administrator can require that the signed-in user approve every remote desktop session before it starts. The following settings control consent and locking, all applied fleet-wide from a config package's Agent tab (and overridable per device on the device page).

Require user consent for remote desktop — when this is on for a device, connecting shows the Connect to remote desktop prompt described in the steps above. You can Request consent and wait for the user to approve, or — if your group holds the Bypass Remote-Desktop Consent action — Connect without consent, which records the reason you enter. If the user declines or does not respond in time, the connection does not start. The prompt on the device names you: your Remote Support Display Name when an administrator set one on your account under Administration → Users, otherwise the name from the technician name template, or your name if no template is set.
Allow physical console access without consent on Terminal Servers — skips the prompt for a Windows session attached to a terminal server's physical console. RDP sessions on that server still ask. It takes effect only while Require user consent for remote desktop is on.
Auto-lock after remote desktop — locks the device automatically when a remote desktop session ends. This is the fleet-wide equivalent of the per-session Lock remote on disconnect toggle; technicians can still override it from the settings menu while a session is running, and that override applies to everyone viewing the session.
On Terminal Servers, lock only the console session — available when Auto-lock after remote desktop is enabled. On a Windows server with the RD Session Host role, remote user sessions are not locked when support disconnects; the physical console still follows the lock setting. Leave this off to apply locking to user sessions too.

Tips

Other technicians can connect to the same session at the same time. Everyone shares one capture stream, so a codec, frame rate or resolution change lands for every viewer, not just for you.
The session is tied to your browser tab. Closing the tab ends the session cleanly. Reloading the tab reconnects from scratch.
If the surface stays blank but the device is online, the agent could not enumerate a desktop target — check that an interactive session is available on the device.
Sessions are recorded in the device activity log under the source Direct Session, just like terminal sessions.

FAQ

Can I transfer files through the clipboard?

No. Clipboard sync, Paste and Type Clipboard transfer text only, not files.

Drag a local file onto the remote surface instead. It uploads to the signed-in user's Downloads folder, not to the location you drag it onto. This requires the File Browser device action. For other file operations, use Transfer and extract files.

How do I send Alt+Tab to the remote Windows device?

In Chrome or Edge, activate Fullscreen, allow keyboard capture if prompted, and focus the remote surface before pressing Alt+Tab. Without keyboard capture, your local operating system may intercept the shortcut. Alt+Tab is not available in Send keys.

Can I view all remote monitors at the same time?

No. Remote Desktop shows one monitor at a time. Use the display picker to switch monitors, or press Ctrl+Shift+M (Cmd+Shift+M on a Mac) while the remote surface has focus.

Is my codec choice saved for the next remote session?

No, not as a default for your account or the device. A new Remote Desktop tab, a new Toolbox window or a page reload starts with Auto. Within the same open Remote Desktop tab, your choice is retained when reconnecting or switching sessions, as long as the codec is compatible with the target platform.

If you join a session another technician is already viewing, you share one stream. Its active codec may therefore differ from Auto; this does not mean your previous choice was saved. Codec changes affect every viewer of that stream.

You can follow and vote for the feature request for custom remote-desktop defaults.

Why does a 4K display not produce a native 4K stream?

By default, the agent limits the video stream to 1,920 pixels on its longer edge. A 3,840 × 2,160 display is therefore scaled down to 1,920 × 1,080 pixels. The remote-desktop interface has no switch for native 4K streaming.

Native 4K capture and streaming would currently demand too much processing power (CPU/GPU), RAM and bandwidth for consistently responsive sessions. We are working on making Remote Desktop more efficient. Until then, this scaling keeps resource use manageable.

Settings → Resolution changes the remote Windows device's display resolution, not this video-stream limit. Fullscreen enlarges the picture in your browser but does not add image detail.

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