Curtain Mode is a Remote Management feature on macOS that blocks or conceals the display on the computer Screens is connected to. It's useful if you don't want the remote user to see what you're doing (e.g. entering a password or editing a sensitive system file).
This is what people in front of the remote Mac will see (the text is user-customizable):
Note: In macOS 13 Ventura, the display is completely blank and does not display any information.
In Screens, you will see the remote desktop:
Curtain Mode State
When connecting from a Mac, you can check the state of Curtain Mode via its toolbar button:
Click the button to toggle Curtain Mode on or off.
When connecting from an iPhone, iPad, or Vision Pro, an indicator will appear at the top of the window to show that Curtain Mode is enabled:
You can enable to disable Curtain Mode from the Actions button:
Things to consider
- To use Curtain Mode, you must enable Remote Management on the Mac you’re connecting to, as the Screen Sharing service does not support this feature. Detailed instructions can be found here.
- Curtain Mode may prevent Screens from selecting the last used display or cause flickering when connecting to a Mac with multiple displays. Unfortunately, this is a macOS issue beyond our control.
- Screens makes every effort to enable Curtain Mode on the destination Mac. However, Curtain Mode cannot be activated when the Login Window is visible. Screens 5 is able to detect this situation and will automatically retry enabling Curtain Mode every few seconds, which should work once you're passed the Login Window.
- Curtain Mode is intentionally disabled by the Remote Management service for background sessions. Screens detects this scenario and avoids attempting to enable Curtain Mode to prevent unnecessary flickering of the rendering view.
- Curtain Mode is a feature only available on Macs and is not available on PCs.
Note: This feature depends on the macOS native Remote Management service, and so is available only when connecting to a Mac.
Configuration
You'll find Curtain More configuration under the saved connection settings under Security.
Manual activation
If Curtain Mode is not set to enable automatically, you can locate the Curtain Mode button on the connection window toolbar in Screens for Mac or in the Actions menu within the interactive toolbar in Screens for iPhone, iPad, Vision Pro.
On-Disconnect Actions
Note that Curtain Mode may cancel any On-Disconnect Actions sent to the remote Mac.