A macOS update, a power cut, a crash at three in the morning: the Mac comes back at the login window, and every remote access app that lives inside your user session is gone with it. ManyScreens has an optional service for exactly that moment. It starts with the Mac, before anyone logs in, and carries Apple’s own Screen Sharing to your browser.
Your list marks the Mac as “login screen”. Open it as usual: ManyScreens says nobody is logged in and shows the login window. Screen Sharing then asks who you are: that is an account on the Mac, not your ManyScreens password. Sign in and you are at the desktop.
The same path also helps when someone is logged in but ManyScreens is not running. The viewer says which of the two it is, so you are never told a Mac is empty when somebody is sitting at it.
This path is built differently from everything else in ManyScreens. Saying so matters more than making it sound the same.
| Normal session | Login window | |
|---|---|---|
| Picture from | ManyScreens’ own capture | Apple’s Screen Sharing |
| Route | WebRTC, peer to peer or through a relay that cannot read it | Mac → ManyScreens server → browser, over two TLS connections. The server forwards the stream without decoding it, but this path is not end‑to‑end encrypted. |
| Who can open it | You, and guests you let in | You only. Guest codes never reach it. |
| Viewers | Several at once | One at a time |
| Extras | Sound, files, quality settings, key row | None of them. A phone can see the login window and tap it, but cannot type into it. |
| Network | Falls back to plain HTTPS if WebSockets are blocked | Needs a WebSocket |
On Linux, the same service reaches X11 login screens. On Windows it does not exist yet.
Reachable before login is not a paid feature. Free: up to three computers, no time limit. Pro is €4.99 a month or €39 a year.