Methods, systems, and techniques for remote contextual access to an operating system desktop are provided. Example embodiments provide a desktop state agent the harvests information from a user's desktop regarding state of various objects such as open documents, recent documents, links, shared links, bookmarks, upcoming events, and/or recent emails. The harvested information is translated to html or other web browser recognized language where possible and uploaded to be accessible to a web server configured to respond to requests for desktop state using a web address. In one embodiment, the RCAS allows access to a user's desktop transparently—without the user needing to take explicit action. Further, a remote mobile device can render the desktop data without using a session or connection to the user's desktop machine and without use of a remote desktop protocol.