Use one Mac app without sharing the whole desktop

The direct answer

The best way to use an app on another Mac without sharing the whole desktop is to beam that app’s window. Beam puts a window from one Mac onto another: the window itself, on your desktop, at its own size, with its own Dock icon and a place in ⌘ Tab.

This is different from opening the other Mac’s desktop inside a viewer. You choose one window on the other Mac. That window then behaves like a window on the Mac in front of you.

The other Mac can sit untouched while one of its windows joins the Mac in front of you.

How to beam a window

Both Macs run Beam and macOS Sonoma or later. On the same network, Beam discovers other Macs running Beam locally, without asking anything outside the network. Pair them once and the connection is encrypted and pinned to those two machines.

Open the picker on the Mac in front of you. Choose a window from the other Mac. The selected window appears on your desktop at its own size, ready for your keyboard and mouse.

macOS asks the Mac doing the sharing for Screen Recording and Accessibility, and for the clipboard and the local network when those are used. Apple explains why apps need separate permission for screen and system-audio recording, control through Accessibility, and finding devices on the local network.

What the window feels like

Drag a corner of a beamed window and the real window resizes over there. Type into it and the keystrokes land in the app, shortcuts included. Toggle the speaker and that app’s audio plays on this Mac.

The picture is streamed at your display’s exact resolution, so text stays crisp. The window also has its own Dock icon and place in ⌘ Tab, which means you can move between local and beamed windows in the same familiar ways.

This is the central difference between a window and a screen. You are bringing one useful part of the other Mac into your current workspace, not navigating a second workspace to reach it.

What stays on the other Mac

While you work in a beamed window, nothing moves on the other Mac’s screen. Only the window you picked is shared, and password managers are kept out of the picker by default.

Beam shares one window at a time, or a whole display when you pick one. That choice is explicit. Selecting an app window does not expose the surrounding desktop, other open windows, or whatever else is visible on the other Mac.

How the Macs connect

Both Macs run Beam. They talk directly over the local network, or over your Tailscale tailnet when apart. No account, no server, no cloud.

A tailnet is the private network created by Tailscale for your own devices. When the Macs are away from the same physical network, Beam uses that existing connection to let them find and talk to each other.

When you beam a window, the picture, your keyboard and mouse input, and the clipboard if you have clipboard sync on, go straight from one of your Macs to the other. Our post about Beam’s direct connection explains this privacy model in more detail.

Why Apple’s tools answer a different question

Apple describes its built-in Screen Sharing app as a way to view and control another Mac’s screen. Its High Performance mode provides one or two virtual displays. Those are complete display spaces rather than individual Mac app windows placed into your local Dock and ⌘ Tab.

Apple Remote Desktop similarly works with the logged-in display or a separate virtual desktop. These tools fit work that calls for controlling an entire physical or virtual display. Beam fits the task of using a selected app window alongside the windows already on the Mac in front of you.

Why X11 forwarding is different

X11 forwarding can show an individual application from another computer. XQuartz provides the X Window System on macOS, and its documentation explains how to forward compatible X11 applications through SSH.

That path applies to X11 software. A native Mac app is not an X11 application, so X11 forwarding is not the general answer for bringing native Mac app windows from one Mac to another.

A desk, a tailnet, or a headless Mac

On one network, local discovery connects the Macs. Away from that network, your tailnet connects them. A headless Mac, meaning one without a monitor attached, gets a virtual display from Beam at Retina density. A virtual display gives macOS a display space even when there is no physical monitor.

This makes the same window-first workflow useful for a headless Mac mini at your desk. Beam also ships a command line with a doctor that checks permissions and the network on that Mac.

Beam is $49 once, for every Mac you use, no subscription. Made by Noats, Inc. Requires macOS Sonoma or later, on both Macs.