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I am using the Screen Sharing application on a Macintosh running OS X Lion. I use Command-Tab to rotate between applications similarly to Alt-Tab on a Windows machine. However, when the Screen Sharing application has focus, the Command-Tab is being interpreted by the target screen instead of my local Macintosh.

How can I override this behavior and have my Macintosh see the Command-Tab instead of the remote screen?

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    Good question. According to here, the hidden preference com.apple.ScreenSharing DoNotSendSystemKeys is ignored as of OS X Lion.
    – Daniel Beck
    Jul 28, 2012 at 15:27
  • Unfortunately, as stated on that page, this no longer works in OS X 10.7 anymore.
    – WilliamKF
    Jul 28, 2012 at 15:47
  • Try to change the mode to Full Screen.
    – kenorb
    Aug 14, 2012 at 9:51
  • are you connecting from Mac to Mac? Which Screen Sharing application do you use?
    – kenorb
    Aug 14, 2012 at 9:51
  • I'm connecting from a Mac to a Linux box. The Mac has an application called Screen Sharing that I am using.
    – WilliamKF
    Aug 14, 2012 at 11:22

4 Answers 4

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Realize this is old but I have found that killing the 'RFBEventHelperd' process using the Activity Monitor app allows Command-Tab to work properly with Screen Sharing. I have not seen any side effects in killing this process.

Only issue is that you have to kill this process every time you launch a new instance of Screen Sharing.

Here is the link where I found this solution: http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20120221065822722

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    I wanted my screen shared desktop to allow for command tab, and instead my local machine had overridden it (so I believe the opposite issue of what the original question was asking haha), but kanso's answer helped solved it for me, thanks kanso!
    – Adam
    Jun 17, 2020 at 17:43
  • I tried to kill the process in catalina but every time I switch to screen sharing window the process comes back. I did not launch a new screen sharing session just switch to an opened one.
    – SFbay007
    Sep 24, 2020 at 4:04
  • @SFbay007 - I was having the same issue but I think I found a way around it. See my answer
    – cwd
    Nov 7, 2020 at 21:34
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If you press optioncommandx, then the screen sharing window will go into 'observe mode', and won't accept any mouse or keyboard input. Then you can press commandtab and switch apps. I know this doesn't really fix your problem, but it's at least a quick workaround...

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    I actually have the opposite problem; I want cmd-tab to be captured by the remote host. Your solution works perfectly for this case. option-cmd-tab moves between remote apps! Thanks for the tip. Jun 21, 2018 at 12:22
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On macOS Catalina (10.15.5), I was able to have Cmd-Tab work on my host machine by unloading the RFBEventHelper daemon:

sudo launchctl unload /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.RFBEventHelper.plist
  • You need to have System Integrity Protection disabled
  • You check the status of SIP with csrutil status
  • Disabling SIP is not recommended
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  • Cool. Are there any side effects to disabling SIP, using -w to prevent the daemon from ever loading, and then re-enabling SIP?
    – Ivan X
    Nov 7, 2022 at 19:21
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I think I have the solution. I've had the same problem. On both Macs go in the System Preferences to share screen options and be sure that "external management" or "remote management" is off and screenshare is on. Maybe I don't use exactly the right words, because I translated these from Dutch. I hope this helps you.

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  • Warning: once you do this, you'll lose your remote management connection, and you won't be able to log into your computer remotely, and so you'll have to drive into work to check "remote management" again. This did reset the connection and problem solved, but then the issue came back 3 weeks later. Kill the 'RFBEventHelperd' process, as kanso's answer says to do, and problem solved.
    – Adam
    Jun 17, 2020 at 17:43

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