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NinjaOne Remote: Connecting to a Device

  • Last Updated March 9, 2026

Topic

This article discusses how to use NinjaOne Remote to connect to a managed device in your NinjaOne environment.

Environment

NinjaOne Remote

Description

NinjaOne Remote is a comprehensive remote access solution that bridges the gap between users and their devices, regardless of distance. The feature gives technicians and end users seamless remote control capabilities, transforming any internet-connected device into a portal to another computer.

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Before You Start

To connect to devices via NinjaOne Remote:

Device Terminology

There are two devices involved in a NinjaOne Remote connection:

  • The player device: The device from which NinjaOne Remote connects (the host device).
  • The streamer device: The remote device to which NinjaOne Remote connects (the client device).

Connecting to a Device via NinjaOne Remote

To connect to a remote device, navigate to its dashboard, select the Overview tab, then click the NinjaOne Remote icon and choose Connect from the drop-down menu.

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Figure 1: The NinjaOne Remote icon (click to enlarge)

Connection Considerations

Remember these considerations when working with NinjaOne Remote:

  • The NinjaOne Remote App is named "NCPlayer" in the process monitor.
  • NinjaOne may prompt you to confirm that you wish to open the NinjaOne Remote app.
  • If the NinjaOne Remote app version installed on your player device is outdated compared to the deployed streamer on the client machine, NinjaOne will prompt you to upgrade. Click OK, then click the link to download the updated version. If prompted, click Update to upgrade your NinjaOne Remote player device.
  • While NinjaOne initiates the session, the app icon's color changes to indicate the current connection status, and the screen displays the connection stage (such as "attempting to connect" and "waiting for a remote machine").
  • NinjaOne logs all remote sessions in Activities in the device's dashboard.

Remote Session Tools Explained

When you launch a NinjaOne Remote session, the session toolbar will appear.

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Figure 2: The NinjaOne Remote session toolbar (click to enlarge)

Refer to the table below for a description of each numbered control:

KeyDescription
1

Device name: Left or right-click the device name for additional options:

  • Left-click: Open the device's overview page in NinjaOne.
  • Right-click: Open a dialog box to make notes and add a device nickname. The nickname will only display during NinjaOne Remote sessions.
2

Display options: Click the icon to open the drop-down menu. In this menu, you can set the following options:

  • Resolution: Choose a resolution in which to view the remote device's display on your screen. Available screen resolution is based on the remote machine's screen resolution.
  • Scale to fit: Select this option to resize the remote monitor to fit your display.
3Switch user icon: Left-click this icon to show a list of all active users on the device. Choose a user from the list to switch to their session.
4Ctrl + Alt + Delete: Send a Ctrl + Alt + Del command to the player device.
5Paste as keystrokes: Paste the player device's clipboard to the streamer device as if the technician had typed the characters. This action lets the technician paste the copied text without synchronizing the clipboard with the remote device. This option also exists in the Settings menu (Feature 11 in this table). The technician can show or hide this button in that menu.
6Common keyboard shortcuts: This option displays frequently used keyboard combinations in a menu and sends them to the remote device as keystrokes. The last item in the menu sends the player device’s clipboard to the streamer’s screen.
7

Manual clipboard synchronization: When clipboard synchronization is turned off, this system shows two options:

  • Copy the clipboard contents to the remote device's clipboard.
  • Copy the remote device's clipboard to a local machine.

8

The remote printing tool: This tool enables technicians to print from the streamer device. Click this icon for remote printing options:

  • Left-click: Activate or deactivate Remote Printing. Activating will install the NinjaOne Remote printer driver on the endpoint.
  • Right-click: Switch between the following modes:
    • Default printer: This mode automatically chooses the printer with default settings on the NinjaOne Player's side when printing to 'NinjaOne Remote. '
    • Extended mode: This option opens the printer dialog on the NinjaOne Player's side, letting you choose a printer or adjust a printer's settings when printing to 'NinjaOne Remote.'
9

File transfer: Transfer files to and from the remote device. The technician will get two adjacent file explorer windows when using this feature:

  • The left window displays the file explorer for the local machine.
  • The right window displays the file explorer for the remote machine.

The technician can send files to and from either machine. They can also rename and delete files from this modal.

10Chat: Open a chat window.
11

Settings menu: This selection governs general settings for the NinjaOne Remote session:

  • Prevent technician keyboard and mouse: Block all cursor input from the technician on the remote device.
  • Prevent user keyboard and mouse: Block all cursor input from the user on the remote device. NinjaOne Remote cannot prevent input from laptop trackpads.
  • Record session: The session immediately starts recording and continues until you turn off the recording or the session ends.

Additional Settings menu:

This menu contains additional options to customize your remote session. Refer to the Additional Settings Explained section for a description of each setting.

12

Power options menu:

  • Disconnect: Terminate the remote session (this option is the only one in this menu that ends the remote session).
  • Lock System: Lock the active session, requiring the end user to enter their password to return to the desktop.
  • Logoff: Log the end user out.
  • Shutdown: Deactivate the remote device (the device will not come back online).
  • Reboot: Reboot the remote machine.

Additional Settings Explained

This menu contains additional options to customize your remote session.

SettingDescription
General
  • Prevent remote device idle timeout: Stop the remote device from entering an idle state due to timeout and remote connection interruption.
  • Enable file copy/paste clipboard synchroniztion: Activate the ability to copy and paste or drag and drop files between the local and remote machines. File Transfer (feature 10 in this table) will work regardless of this setting.
  • Keep chat window minimized: Prevent the chat window from expanding during the remote connection session.
  • Remove FPS from window caption: Do not show the Frames Per Second (FPS) rate in the window caption.
  • Select record directory: Open the native file explorer so the technician can select a save location for the recording. The recording is saved on the player (technician) side, not the streamer (end-user) side.
  • Alternative directory for recordings: Specify a backup directory in which to save recordings.
Session
  • Session Timeout: End the remote session if the player device has been idle for a specified time. The Prevent inactivity timeout supplemental option stops the remote device from idling or going to sleep.
  • On session close: Choose to lock the remote machine and log the remote user out when the technician ends the session.
  • Clear clipboard on session close: Clear the clipboard for both the streamer and the player device when the session ends.
  • Enable clipboard synchronization: Synchronize the clipboards of the player and streamer devices.
  • Enable “Ctrl+Alt+Del” icon on toolbar: Show the Ctrl+Alt+Del shortcut button as a top-level button on the toolbar.
  • Enable Paste as keystrokes button on toolbar: Show the button as a top-level button on the toolbar.
  • Change keyboard input to text mode: Convert keystrokes into Unicode characters, which helps when remoting into a device with a keyboard in a different language. Some characters are impossible to input using common character sets due to language differences. This feature gives more keyboard flexibility.
  • Disconnect confirmation: Prompt for a confirmation before disconnecting.
Display
  • Preferred startup resolution: Pick the proper screen resolution before you start the session.
  • Set as default: Set your preferred startup resolution as the default resolution.
  • Video quality: Adjust the stream's video quality. A higher video quality will improve the picture, while a lower video quality will improve the performance.
  • Use lossless if possible: When selected, NinjaOne Remote will attempt to the highest possible uncompressed quality. The success of this attempt depends on factors including storage space. processing power, and bandwidth. This selection will only be available if you set the video quality to Ultra.
  • Grayscale: Set the display to black and white.
  • Disable auto resize: Prevents NinjaOne from automatically resizing display elements.
  • Enable remote wallpaper: Strip the wallpaper from the remote device. When selected, the wallpaper will remain.
  • Enable font smoothing: Prevent the font on the remote machine from looking grainy and jagged. This feature uses more resources on the remote device.
  • Show remote cursor: View the remote user's cursor location,, which will appear as a red dot.
  • Show red frame: Display a red border around the monitor that the technician is viewing.
  • Show black screen: Display a black screen so technicians can work on the device without displaying their activity on the monitor. Refer to the Show Black Screen section of this article for more information.
Network
  • Hybrid TCP + UDP Link: Instruct the remote device to attempt to push the traffic over UDP, which is much lighter and quicker. When turned off, the system sends all traffic over TCP.
  • Proxy settings: Enter this information if you are connecting via a proxy server.
H.264

Enable openh264 library: Enable the openH264 video codec library, developed by Cisco Systems, Inc.

  • To enable the openH64 library, you must download the archive with the library and unpack it into the new player device directory.
  • A minimum version of 2.6.0 is required for the application to work correctly.
Advanced
  • Screen capture mode: Set NinjaOne to auto-detect the best mode, or manually select your screen capture mode.
  • GPU acceleration: Leverage an external GPU on the player (technician) device to reduce CPU strain.

Show Black Screen

The Show black screen feature lets technicians work on the remote machine without displaying the work on its screen. This feature is available for endpoints running Windows 10 Server 2019, Version 20H1 (10019041 or newer.

  • The default setting for this feature is Off.
  • The Show black screen feature will remain in effect until you turn it off manually.

To activate the feature, connect to the device through NinjaOne Remote, then navigate to Settings → Additional settings → Display and click Show black screen.

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Figure 3: Additional settings → Show black screen (click to enlarge)

After setup, the remote machine's screen will be black and show a text alert. The default text is "Maintenance."

Customizing Your Black Screen Message

You can customize the message displayed on the black screen in PowerShell by using the following command, changing the text in the "Displayed message" variable:

[Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable("NC_MAINTENANCE_MSG", "displayed message", "Machine")

Your message can be up to 16 characters long. If you leave this variable empty, NinjaOne will show a black screen with no message.

Additional Resources

Refer to Remote Access: Resource Catalog for more information on NinjaOne Remote.

FAQ

Next Steps