Share your Mac’s Cursor & Keyboard with Universal Control

0:02
In this video, we’re going to look at Universal control. On the Mac, we’re going to look at this on the Mac, and iPad. With universal control, what we’re able to do is share our cursor and keyboard with different devices. In my case, here, we’re going to share my keyboard from my Mac, my cursor and keyboard from my Mac with my iPad. Let’s see how we do this. Let’s go to my Mac and my iPad. So I have my cursor here on my Mac, you can see the blue circle around it. Watch what happens when I move this over to the right edge. This is what universal control is when I move it to the right edge, and I keep going, it pushes through to my iPad, you can see it’s on my iPad, I am using the same trackpad on my MacBook Air, I’m going to switch to a different camera, we’re going to add another camera near so you can see how this is working. So we can see my hand here on my MacBook Air. And when I move my cursor around, if we look at the iPad, it’s moving that cursor. Now when I moved to the left edge, watch what happens. It pushes over to my Mac. So basically what I’m doing is I’m sharing my trackpad and keyboard from my Mac with my iPad.

1:18
So if I go back over to my iPad here, and I open up a note, and I start typing on the Mac, I’m going to start typing here, you’re going to see that it is showing on the iPad, we can also use drag and drop. So I just typed this in here. Now what I’d like to do is move this image here over to my Mac, all I have to do is just click, and then I drag it over, and you’re going to see it added it to my Mac. So in addition to using the keyboard, we can also drag and drop. So you can drag and drop images from one app to another from your iPad to your Mac or your Mac to your iPad, as well as text from one app to another. This is what universal control is. So how do we set this up? Well, let’s go back over to just my Mac and iPad. Now in order to set this up, what you need to do is make sure that you’re using at least Mac OS, Monterey 12.3 and iPad os 15.4. So on my Mac here when I go over to my Apple Menu, and then we go over to About This Mac, you’re going to see that I’m using version 12.3 We need to be using version 12.3 with Mac OS Monteray or later on the iPad. When I go over to settings here you’re going to see that I am using 15.4 We need to be using at least iPad os 15.4. Also, you will need to have a newer Mac and a newer iPad.

2:54
If you have an iPad that’s a few years old, this may not work. The last requirement is we need to be signed in with the same iCloud account. This does use iCloud so I’m signed in as Johnny Appleseed on my iPad. And when we go over to my Mac, when we go up to our Apple Menu, and then we go over to our System Preferences, you’re going to see that I’m signed in as Johnny Appleseed. So now I have all of the requirements met. How do we set this up? Well, basically, what we need to do on the Mac is we need to go to our displays preference pane. And then we go over to universal control. This is where we go and turn it on. I click on it.

3:37
And then we basically have three options, I would recommend turning all three options on the first one here just turns it on. The second one allows you to push through this is where I can go and push through on the side and it goes over to my other device in my case my iPad. And then the third one here will automatically reconnect when it is disconnected. So I like to have all three of these on. So that’s where we set it up on the Mac. Now what about the iPad, what what we need to do on the iPad is we need to go over to our settings app. And then we go over to I’m going to click on General here. What we need to do is we need to go to airplay and handoff. I select this and you’re going to see cursor and keyboard This is in beta as the time I’m recording this and then we need to turn that on. Once you turn that on. What you’re going to be able to do is share your cursor and keyboard with your different devices. Let’s go back over to my overview my other camera where we can see my different devices.

4:42
In addition to sharing my Mac’s keyboard and trackpad here I just go over to the right and you can see it moves over to the iPad. What I am also able to do is share my iPads keyboard and trackpad. And if you had a mouse you’d be able to share the mouse I just happen to have tracking pads. So now I go over to my iPad here, and we can see the cursor on it. And watch what happens when I move it over to the left edge. We have my cursor, and I’m still on my iPad. So in addition to sharing my Mac’s trackpad here and keyboard, I can also share my iPads. And I’m doing this with my iPad and Mac. But you can do this with other devices, you can share it with another Mac as an example. Now, let’s say that the Mac here was on the right side of my iPad. So what I would like to do is I would like to push from the left edge here and have it go into my other device. How can we rearrange how this is set up?

5:45
We do that through the Mac. So what I’m going to do is go back over to Mac, I’m going to turn off my third camera here. And what we need to do is go to our System Preferences. So I go up to the Apple menu here. And then we go over to our System Preferences, we need to go to our displays preference. This is where we set up our universal control. So I select this. And then we go over to displays. Under displays, you’re going to see my two displays here, my iPad is on the right, and my Mac is on the left. Well, what I want to do is I want to reverse it, I want to place my iPad on the left, well, all I have to do is just drag this over to the left side here. And now when I drag my cursor over to the left edge, watch the iPad, we can see the cursor there, I move back to the right edge on the iPad, it brings it back into the Mac. Let’s go and take a look at my overview camera.

6:46
We can see that I’m moving on over to the left edge, and then it pops out on my iPad. And when I go to my iPad, I’m using the cursor here on my iPad or the trackpad on my iPad, bring it over to the right, and it brings it back over to my Mac. So in order to rearrange how your setup is, all you have to do is just go over to the Mac and drag where you want your iPad or your second device. Again, I am using an iPad but this will work with other devices such as another Mac. So that’s how we use universal control on the Mac. Basically, what we’re able to do is share our cursor it could be a trackpad, it could be a mouse as well as our keyboard with other devices and my case here I’m sharing my MacBook Airs trackpad and keyboard with my iPad and vice versa. I’m sharing my iPads trackpad and keyboard with my Mac. We do need to have Mac OS Monterey 12.3 or above and iPad os 15.4 or above. We turn this on through the System Preferences on the Mac under displays. You’ll see universal controls on the iPad you go into Settings and then you go to airplay and handoff. You can rearrange how they are set up through the Mac display preference pane. So that’s how we use universal control to share a cursor could be a trackpad could be a mouse, as well as our keyboard with other devices.