Control your Mac from iPhone with touchpad, keyboard, screen mirroring, files, and Mackie AI. Pair over Wi-Fi or use Online Access from anywhere.
What's great
Started a big export from my Mac before leaving for the day and realized halfway down the street I'd forgotten to close a dialog box blocking it. Being able to pull up the actual trackpad and screen from my phone and just click through it instead of driving back home was the whole reason I grabbed this. Screen mirroring felt responsive over Wi-Fi, not the laggy VNC-style experience I was expecting.
What needs improvement
More upfront detail on how the "Online Access from anywhere" mode is actually secured would help. It's the one feature here that's genuinely different from just being on the same Wi-Fi, and it deserves a clearer explanation of the connection and auth model before people turn it on.
vs Alternatives
Jump Desktop - (RDC & VNC) AppJump Desktop is the general-purpose remote desktop tool for any OS, which means more setup and it feels like using a remote session rather than your actual Mac. Maccess felt more purpose-built for "quickly fix one thing on my own Mac from my phone" rather than full cross-platform remote work sessions.
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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.
Hi @expertguy Congratulations on the launch,
I wanted to test this but cant im not able to connect via scan or via code even if i have installed on both devices and in same network
Maccess
@raunaks_99 Hi Raunak, thanks for flagging this—and sorry you hit it. Please quit and reopen Maccess Helper, make sure it shows Online, then choose “New pairing code” by clicking on reset icon button wit code and scan the fresh code. Also make sure both the iPhone app and Helper are up to date. If it still fails, reply with both version numbers. let me know if any issue and I’ll investigate
@expertguy I did that i did quit from both devices restarted and made the new code and it still shows the same issue, this is the version
Maccess
@raunaks_99 Hi Raunak, found the bug and just shipped the fix — Helper 1.6.2. On your Mac, click the gear icon in Maccess Helper → Check for Updates..., install 1.6.2, then tap the reset button for a fresh code and enter it on your iPhone — it'll connect now. Thanks a lot for reporting this, you helped every new user 🙏
@expertguy Great thats why i like Product hunt, it lets people like us directly connect with the core team rather being stuck in feedback hell of mails, its working right now well made
Congratulations on the launch! Can I control multiple Macs from a single phone at the same time?
Maccess
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!
Looks good, i have a question, how do you ensure privacy and data access. I would love to buy just want to be sure that data is sure and private and relay is totally through my apps/devices not via server?
I was waiting for this kind of product. Thanks for building it. And congrats for the launch.
Maccess
@harkirat_singh3777 Thanks Harkirat
Mackie explaining processes in plain language is the feature that would actually get me to use this over just running ps. But does the list refresh live? I run agentic workflows overnight that spawn and kill subprocesses constantly. Checking from my phone the next morning, I want current state. If I have to tap refresh every time to see what changed, that breaks the use case.
Maccess
@noctis06 Great edge case. Mackie runs a fresh process check each time you ask, so you’ll get the Mac’s current state—not a cached result. But the response itself doesn’t continuously live-update as subprocesses spawn and exit. True live process monitoring would fit your overnight-agent workflow much better, so I’m adding that to the roadmap.