Curtain Mode in Screen Sharing application El Capitan

[RyanDan]

I know this is a long shot but am trying to resolve the problem of users remoting in from their own machines at home to their work machines in a shared office. With the Screen Sharing application being useful and working fully the only major downside is that it leaves their monitor and account open to view by anyone in the near vicinity of their work office machine. Is there a way of turning on a curtain facility or do users have to go out and buy an application to be able to do this???

[mm2270 · Accepted solution]

While there are tools, like ARD (Apple Remote Desktop) that can do "curtain mode", it may not be necessary to buy them all a copy of ARD.

instead you could try is the following:
Create a simple local account on their Macs (for example, call it "screenlock"), that when they leave the office they can log out of their primary account, log into the basic local "screenlock" account, then lock the screen (turn on screensaver, or use the Lock Screen menu from the keychain access menu item for example) No easy way to automate these steps, or have it happen automatically when they leave, so it will be up to them to remember to do this.

When they later use Screen Sharing to remote into their Macs, assuming they are using their own account credentials when connecting, they will get a prompt asking if they'd like to share the screen with existing logged in user ("screenlock"), or log in as themselves. If they do the latter, the existing local "screensaver" account will stay logged in, complete with a locked screen, and Screen Sharing will log them into their actual account behind the scenes. To a user passing by, they will only see screened locked, with the password field up for "screenlock", not their real account, so no snooping from passersby.
Keep in mind every time they use the Mac remotely, it will wake up to come back to that unlock screen password field. Also, any sounds played under the other account, I think, will play on the remote Mac, so they may want to jack the volume down to off just in case they open a website that has any auto playing content. They won't hear it remotely, but anyone in the office will!

I know this sounds strange, but it works, assuming they have the correct privileges to log into their own account with Screen Sharing.