How do you get the apple remote control to pair with iMac Mountain Lion?
How do I get the Apple Remote Control to pair with my iMac?
iMac (27-inch Mid 2010), OS X Mountain Lion
We just worked this out in the Apple remote no longer works with mountain lion thread for a Mac Mini, but I've confirmed that it also works for iMacs.
The solution is as follows. Go to
Preferences --> Security & Privacy --> General
and click the padlock at the bottom-left of the window: you will be asked to enter your Admin username and password [1]. Next click on
Advanced
and make sure that Disable remote infrared receiver does not have a tick next to it. (If it does, click the box to remove the tick mark.)
With this done, you should see a button saying Pair or Unpair: if you see Unpair then click it so that it changes to Pair.
Next click Pair and a box will appear asking you to press the "Menu and the Next buttons" on your remote at the same time, until the remote pairs with the computer.
This is where people have trouble!
On an aluminium Apple remote, I assumed that this message meant that I was to hold down the two, small circular buttons below the large cicular control (one labelled "Menu" and the other marked with a "> ||" icon) but nothing happended. This assumption was wrong.
Instead, you must hold down the small, circular button labelled "Menu" and the ">" button at 3 o'clock on the large, circular control.
After a few seconds, the remote and the iMac will pair and you will see a (dialog) box like this:
Fill this in, click the Pair button, dismiss the dialog and relock the Preferences panel with the padlock.
Your remote should now work fine.
[1] Some people use an Admin account all the time. While this means that you don't have to enter your Admin username and password so often when making changes to your Mac, it's generally a very bad idea, because it makes your Mac very vulnerable to malware.
Instead, you should use a non-Admin account for day-to-day work and only use an Admin username and password when you want to make changes to your system.
You can check what sort of account you're using by going to System Preferences --> Users & Groups. If you are using a non-Admin account then, the dark grey text on the right of the light grey background should say "Allow user to administer this computer" with no tick in the box next to it. If there is a tick next to the text, then you are using a dangerous Admin account and should consider changing to a non-Admin one.
