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The Apple Support Community will permanently close on November 20, 2026. Starting today, the site will no longer accept new posts and is available in a read-only state.
You can continue to find trusted guidance and support on the official Apple Support site.
We want to thank the community members who have contributed their time and expertise to help others with their Apple products.
hi,
i have an iMac that runs el capitan 10.1.6 early 2009.
lately i noticed that i have 1 and now 2 shared computers listed in "shared" on finder.
i can't erase them or do nothing about it?
does anyone have any informationn regarding that problem? has anyone encountered with that problem before?
any suggestions will be helpful and welcome.
iMac (24-inch Early 2009), OS X El Capitan (10.11.6)
This isn't a problem it's a feature 🙂
'Shared' are simply other devices that are announcing the services that they are running on the local network. Apple use the Bluescreen PC icon but it may not be an actual PC. That is a default icon for unknown devices.
Your Mac will announce any services you use in the same manner - you can't delete them because they are not under your control on you Mac. If you want you can hide the shared items, mouseover the 'Shared' header & click the hide option.
'Finder > Preferences' can also control what is shown under the sidebar preferences.
To truly stop them appearing you need to disable the services on the other machine which is on the same network.
If you have control of those devices you can disable whatever services are being shared (looks like Windows file sharing). As you can see the connection failed (see below the PC image) - you need a valid username & password to access these services.
The same is true for any services you enable on your Mac - your use name & password will be required to access those too.
There is no security risk for these provided you follow some basic common sense, like having good passwords.
These devices are on your local network - your internet provider probably won't help you alter them.
Hi Drew,
Thank you for your answer.
so, just to see if I got It right: they can appear to not but there is nothing I can do about it.
what exactly are they or I'm sharing with them?
can the se anything from my personal contact on my iMac? and if so, what can I do about it? do I need to contact my internet provider/network?
i'm sorry for my ignorance, it's just that I want to make sure that there are no safety issues.
thank you 🙂
unknown shared computers in finder
