Back to My Mac was a feature introduced with

Mac OS X Leopard Mac OS X Leopard (version 10.5) is the sixth software versioning, major release of macOS, Apple Inc., Apple's desktop and server operating system for Macintosh computers. Leopard was released on October 26, 2007 as the successor of Mac OS X Tig ...

(10.5) that uses Wide-Area

Bonjour Bonjour is a French word meaning (literally translated) "good day", and is commonly used as a greeting. Bonjour may also refer to: People * Laurence BonJour (born 1943), epistemologist and professor of philosophy at the University of Washington ...

to securely discover services across the Internet and automatically configure ad hoc, on-demand, point-to-point encrypted connections between computers using

IPsec In computing, Internet Protocol Security (IPsec) is a secure network protocol suite that authenticates and encrypts packets of data to provide secure encrypted communication between two computers over an Internet Protocol network. It is used in ...

. The current version of the feature requires users to have

iCloud iCloud is a Personal cloud, cloud service from Apple Inc. launched on October 12, 2011 as a successor to MobileMe. , the service had an estimated 850 million users, up from 782 million users in 2016. iCloud enables users to sync their data to t ...

set up, as well as an

Apple ID Apple ID is an authentication method used by Apple for iPhone, iPad, Mac and other Apple devices. Apple IDs contain the user's personal information and settings. When an Apple ID is used to log in to an Apple device, the device will automatica ...

. Due to its generality, ''Back to My Mac'' can work for many

-enabled services, not just Screen Sharing (similar to

Apple Remote Desktop Apple Remote Desktop (ARD) is a Macintosh application produced by Apple Inc., first released on March 14, 2002, that replaced a similar product called ''Apple Network Assistant''. Aimed at computer administrators responsible for large numbers of ...

) and File Sharing. Users must have a router that supports either

Universal Plug and Play Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) is a set of networking protocols that permits networked devices, such as personal computers, printers, Internet gateways, Wi-Fi access points and mobile devices to seamlessly discover each other's presence on the n ...

(UPnP) or

NAT Port Mapping Protocol NAT Port Mapping Protocol (NAT-PMP) is a network protocol for establishing network address translation (NAT) settings and port forwarding configurations automatically without user effort. The protocol automatically determines the external IPv4 a ...

(NAT-PMP) with either of those features enabled in their connected router. It uses UDP port 4500 for point-to-point IPsec connections (which may be mapped to different UDP ports on the public side of a NAT router). As of October 12, 2011, Apple has included ''Back to My Mac'' in its

service rather than the previously used MobileMe, thus making it free to use. On August 9, 2018, Apple updated a support document to note that ''Back to My Mac'' would not be part of the

macOS Mojave macOS Mojave ( ; version 10.14) is the fifteenth software versioning, major release of macOS, Apple Inc.'s desktop operating system for Macintosh computers. Mojave was announced at Apple's Apple Worldwide Developers Conference, Worldwide Devel ...

(10.14) release. The support document was updated again on May 31, 2019, to indicate that ''Back to My Mac'' services would be discontinued for all other versions of macOS as of July 1, 2019.

Uses

Back to My Mac can be used to edit and transfer files from one Mac to another. In one instance an

Apple Store The Apple Store is a chain of Retail, retail stores owned and operated by Apple Inc. The stores sell various Apple products, including Macintosh, Mac personal computers, iPhone smartphones, iPad tablet computers, Apple Watch smartwatches, Apple ...

employee used this technology to capture the image of a person who stole a MacBook, using the built in

iSight iSight is a brand name used by Apple Inc. to refer to cameras on various devices. The name was originally used for the external iSight webcam, which retailed for US$149, connected to a computer via a FireWire cable, and came with a set of moun ...

webcam.

References

{{Mac-software-stub MacOS Internet software