How to help family with their PC from your phone

RemoteAccessApp runs in your phone's browser, on iPhone and Android alike. Sign in at remoteaccessapp.com, and you can open any PC in your account or help someone with a one-time code. On iPhone, Add to Home Screen from Safari's Share menu makes it open like an app, and Android browsers can add a home-screen shortcut too.

• Their PC is in your account. Suits someone you help often. Set it up once, ideally when you're with them, and it's on your dashboard from then on. Each time you connect they click Allow, unless you've agreed to turn on unattended access at their PC. The family guide walks through it.
• A one-time code. Suits a one-off, or someone whose PC isn't in your account. On their PC they open RemoteAccessApp and read you the 8-digit code under This PC's code on Home. On your phone, open Dashboard → Help someone and type it in. The code works once, and their PC never joins your account. It works for a relative on Linux too: the code is in the same place in their app. See how to help someone with a one-time code for the steps on both sides.

Either way, their PC shows who is connecting and waits for their Allow, and a banner with an End button stays on their screen for the whole session.

• Turn the phone sideways. A desktop is wide; landscape gives you a much bigger picture.
• Use Trackpad mode for small buttons. It's the default: one finger moves a pointer, like a laptop touchpad, and a tap clicks. Touch mode clicks exactly where you tap instead.
• Zoom before you tap. Pinch to zoom in on a tiny close button, slide two fingers to move around, and Fit to see the whole screen again.
• Right-click with a double-tap or a two-finger tap, and scroll with two fingers.

The phone guide has the full list of gestures.

Phone keyboards don't have Ctrl or Alt, so the session's Shortcuts menu sends them for you, one tap each. A few that come up again and again:

• Task Manager, for the program that's frozen everything.
• Close window (Alt+F4), for the pop-up with no visible close button.
• Switch app (Alt+Tab), for the window that's hiding behind another one.
• Copy, Paste and Undo, for the paragraph that "just disappeared".

To type, tap the keyboard button and use your phone's own keyboard, autocorrect and dictation included. A strip above it adds Esc, Tab, Ctrl, Alt, the arrows and the F-keys.

Choose Saves data in the session's top bar: it sends a lighter picture, less often, which is plenty for clicking through a settings page. If you switch apps to answer a message, the session reconnects when you come back.

A phone is great for a quick fix. For the bigger jobs, such as installing software, sorting out a full disk or digging through what's running, the RemoteAccessApp Console on a Windows or Linux PC gives you a full screen, a terminal on their PC and the tools for processes, services and logs. You can send files too. There's no shame in "I'll sort that out properly tonight". Our list of 7 ways to help your family with their computer covers what you can do from there, from the chat to waking a sleeping PC.

And a word for your family: real helpers don't call out of the blue asking for a code. If anyone they didn't contact asks them to read out a code or install something, they should hang up. Our post on spotting a remote access scam is worth sending them.