screensharing with VoiceOver

By Rocco, 1 February, 2014

Forum
macOS and Mac Apps
Hello All, I have a totally blind friend who just got a MacBook Air about 2 days ago. I'm trying to help him set up a few basic things (like telling VoiceOver to come on at the log in screen, etc.) and he is having trouble pressing the right key commands, etc. so it's becoming increasingly difficult to accomplish things by trying to tell him what to do. It would be much easier if I could simply control his mac. I know Apple has screen sharing, and the ability for ssh, but I didn't know if VoiceOver was compatible with either sharing method. I know you can screenshare with Skype, but Skype doesn't allow you to control the other person's machine. Has anyone had experience with this before? I also thought about using something called Join Me, but I wasn't sure how compatible that was either. I'm trying to find a solution that works, before I spend the amount of time trying to get his computer to give me the information I need to connect to it using whatever sharing service I'll end up using. He has a bit of a learning disability, so certain things, like controlling computers, are a little harder for him then most of us. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thnk you so much! Rocco

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Comments

By Khalfan Bin Dhaher on Monday, February 10, 2014 - 05:28

Hello. I'm very pleased to help, have you ever used team viewer? Team viewer is an app that allow users to control other computers and share files remotely. The app is very useful and easy to use. For more information about team viewer please visit http://www.teamviewer.com. If you need help please don't hesitate to ask.

By Rocco on Monday, February 10, 2014 - 05:28

Thank you, I'll take a look at that. And I'm assuming it's VoiceOver compatible?

By Tree on Monday, February 10, 2014 - 05:28

I'm pretty sure screen sharing does work with voice over. I will try and find out tomorrow and if it does not I will get back to you. You can also just try it yourself with your friend if you want. its pretty easy to set it up. He will just have to type in some things into his web browser and then type in a password and user name. Unless he will need to change his sharing Preferences as well.

By Khalfan Bin Dhaher on Monday, February 10, 2014 - 05:28

Yes. It is VoiceOver compatible. ive used it before and it worked well. If you need any assistant please don't hesitate to contact. I'm happy to help.

By LP on Monday, February 10, 2014 - 05:28

I downloaded Teamview and I was able to connect to someone's computer. I was not however, able to read their screen with Voice-Over. When I was connected, it said "empty HTML". Is there a way to read someone else's screen with Voice-Over? Thanks for any help you can give me.

By Khalfan Bin Dhaher on Monday, February 10, 2014 - 05:28

Yes I believe. Give me a chance to test it one more time and get back to you soon. Khalfan.

By Isaac Hebert (not verified) on Monday, February 10, 2014 - 05:28

Doesn't the person on the other end have to have a screen reader running for this to work?

By Rocco on Wednesday, June 10, 2015 - 05:28

Has anyone found a workable solution to this? I did try Team Viewer, which seems to work, but the VO keys do not work from the remote side...so I can arrow around, but can't for example, go to the doc or command tab to cycle through applications. I haven't been able to successfully get native mac screen sharing to work with anyone, so I'm not sure how Voiceover
responds to that...has anyone tried that method before?

By KE7ZUM on Wednesday, June 10, 2015 - 05:28

I'm actually looking for somethingn similar for trainign as well. I can't believe there is no solution for this as of yet.

By cjackson on Wednesday, June 10, 2015 - 05:28

I didn't realize team viewer was accessible with voiceover. The last time I tried it didn't work well. Please let me know.

By KE7ZUM on Wednesday, June 10, 2015 - 05:28

Actually it's not, if you want to like get to the doc or what not so I've read in this thread.

By Manjunath Vangala on Sunday, July 10, 2022 - 05:28

Hey guys!
In my work place, we mainly use screen sharing application on mac. And the voiceover, unfortunately, is not reading anything. Except, close, minimize, full screen, the system name that I logged into, and a scrole bar. It still says "scrole bar" even if we do VO shift down arrow. It is moving somewhere with the tab key but the voiceover will not read anything.

Screen sharing is an application built by Apple. And it is not accessible with their own screen reader.
I've been talking to the Apple customer support about this but they're not very responsive.
Any ideas on how to make this request to Apple?
Your thoughts, ideas and suggestions will be grately appreciated.
PS: we're not allowed to use the third party applications like team viewer, anydesk etc. So we definitely have to use the Apple's own screen sharing.

By Nuno on Sunday, July 10, 2022 - 05:28

The only thing you need to do is to gfo to “Toolbar” and select “Send system commands”. Then you do a mouse lcick with VO in the scroll view.

By Sebby on Sunday, July 10, 2022 - 05:28

Screen Sharing, by itself, isn't accessible, no. It uses VNC (remote graphical output), which VO can't read. It is indeed a shame that Apple hasn't tackled this credibly.

But you can use it with VoiceOver, if you combine it with tools that let you listen to the remote system's audio. I wrote about this in this post.

Does TeamViewer allow you to listen to the remote VoiceOver speech now? I was not aware of that!