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Maccess
Your Mac, in your pocket — trackpad, screen, and AI
151 followers
Your Mac, in your pocket — trackpad, screen, and AI
151 followers
Control your Mac from iPhone with touchpad, keyboard, screen mirroring, files, and Mackie AI. Pair over Wi-Fi or use Online Access from anywhere.
been wanting this since I keep leaving my Mac running some long job at home and then needing to poke at it from my phone. the "pair over Wi-Fi or use Online Access from anywhere" bit is the part I'd want to understand better before turning it on though - is Online Access relayed through your servers or is it a direct connection to the Mac, and what's actually protecting the trackpad/screen session at that point, just the Apple ID or something separate
Maccess
@galdayan Great question. On the same Wi‑Fi, the connection stays local. Online Access may connect directly or use a secure relay, depending on the networks involved.
Apple ID isn’t the only protection—it authenticates your Maccess account, while the iPhone must be separately paired using the QR code or pairing code displayed on the Mac.
Each session uses fresh encryption keys established with X25519. Control data—including trackpad input, keystrokes, clipboard data, and commands—is end-to-end encrypted and authenticated with ChaCha20‑Poly1305, so intercepted traffic is unreadable and tampered messages are rejected. Screen content is also encrypted between the paired devices.
If a relay is needed, it only forwards encrypted traffic and never receives the session keys. Maccess doesn’t store the content of your remote-control sessions, and you can disable Online Access or remove a paired device at any time.
@expertguy that's a genuinely thorough answer, fresh X25519 keys per session plus a separate device pairing step (not just Apple ID) covers the exact gap I was worried about. the relay-never-sees-the-session-keys detail is the one that actually matters for the "anywhere" mode, most apps that offer that just quietly trust their own backend. good design choice to make removing a paired device instant too
Maccess
@galdayan Thanks, Gal — really appreciate that. That’s exactly the principle behind the design: the relay can help establish connectivity, but it should never become a trusted party with access to the session itself. Glad the details addressed your concerns!
DiffSense
Question. What does the relay service layer look like? Are you using a premae service or your own server etc? Did you consider using wifi direct? for local relay. Wifi direct gets around school office lan blockers etc. So it works locally beyond the home wifi etc. Thanks
Maccess
@conduit_design Thanks André — good questions. It’s a hybrid: Maccess’s pairing, routing, and security layer is custom, while the underlying connectivity runs on managed infrastructure rather than a single self-hosted relay server. It prefers device-to-device connections where possible and uses a relay when network conditions require it.
The security boundary remains between your paired iPhone and Mac regardless of the route. Session content is end-to-end encrypted, control data uses ChaCha20‑Poly1305 authenticated encryption, and the relay never receives the decryption keys.
For local connections, yes—Maccess supports both the normal local network and Apple’s peer-to-peer Wi‑Fi path, which is the closest Apple-platform equivalent to Wi‑Fi Direct. That can get around router or client-isolation restrictions on some school and office networks. Availability is ultimately controlled by the OS and network policy, so it can’t bypass every managed environment; Online Access remains the fallback when local connectivity is blocked.
Pawvis
Nice! I've used several things like this over the years, but this looks like a well thought out combination of previous stabs at discrete aspects of the problem space evolved into the agentic generative AI era. Love the ability to pick from such a wide range of options for its "brain."
Maccess
@heresalexandria Thanks, Alexandria! That’s exactly the direction I’ve been aiming for: bringing the useful parts of remote-control tools together and rebuilding the experience around modern agent workflows, rather than simply adding a chatbot on top. I also didn’t want Maccess to lock people into one “brain,” so letting people choose the AI tools they already trust is a big part of it. Really appreciate you noticing that!
Zivy
I was waiting for this kind of product. Thanks for building it. And congrats for the launch.
Maccess
@harkirat_singh3777 Thanks Harkirat