The Mac app, screen by screen

When PocketCtrl opens you see Connect to Your Mac with two buttons and a list of any Macs you have saved as a viewer.

• Start hosting on this device opens the Host side panel, where you start sharing this Mac's screen.
• Connect a new Mac opens the sheet for pairing this Mac, as a viewer, with another Mac.
• The status line underneath shows the viewer state, for example Disconnected, and a Need help connecting? link that brings you to this help center.

The top bar shows the quality preset (for viewing), an Audio toggle, live fps and Mbps, and on the right the Host button with a dot that turns on while this Mac is hosting.

Click Host (or Start hosting on this device) and a panel slides in from the right. At the top: the hosting status, Start Hosting / Stop Hosting, and, while hosting, the pairing area with Pair New Device and the current QR code and Computer Code. Below are five collapsible sections.

• Start hosting automatically: hosting begins whenever PocketCtrl opens. Combine with launch at login for an always-available Mac.
• Keep Mac awake while hosting: prevents idle sleep so remote devices can still connect. The display may still dim. Recommended on.
• Launch at login: registers PocketCtrl as a login item. macOS may show a notification the first time; you can review it in System Settings → General → Login Items.
• Allow remote input: a host-wide master switch for mouse and keyboard control. Turning it off blocks input from every device, even ones approved with control. Turning it on does not grant control to devices approved without it.
• Share Mac audio and Clipboard sync: host-wide switches with the same logic. A device also needs the matching per-device permission from its approval.

Display chooses which screen to share on a multi-monitor Mac. Capture width, Frame rate, and Bitrate are the host's ceilings; viewers can ask for less but never more. Adaptive bitrate lowers quality when the network struggles and raises it again when it recovers. Changes apply live to an active session without restarting capture, except display and width changes, which briefly restart it.

• Local Wi-Fi: this Mac's address on the local network, or Not detected. Click to copy.
• Tailscale: this Mac's Tailscale address, or Not detected when Tailscale is off. When it is not detected a Set up Tailscale link appears. See Tailscale troubleshooting.
• Video, Audio, Input ports: defaults 5555, 5557, 5556 (UDP). Change them only if something else on your Mac uses those ports.
• Nearby Wi-Fi discovery: advertises this Mac with Bonjour so phones on the same Wi-Fi can find it without an address. Requires the Mac's Local Network permission. Off means Off. Tailscale and manual pairing still work.

Shows Screen Recording, Accessibility, and Local Network status with a button to request each, plus live counters for packets, chunks, frames, bytes, skipped frames, and input events, and the list of currently connected viewers with their route. It is the first place to look when a viewer says it is connected but sees nothing: if the frame counter is not rising, the Mac is not capturing.

Every device you have approved is listed with its name, what it is allowed to do, whether it is unattended or session-only, and when it last connected. Remove from List revokes it immediately and deletes its credential from this Mac's Keychain. The device will need to pair again.

Credentials for unattended devices are stored in the Mac's device-only Keychain and never sync to iCloud. Session-only devices are not stored at all. See Pairing explained.

Choose Connect a new Mac, then either paste a pocketctrl:// pairing link or click Upload QR Screenshot and pick an image of the other Mac's QR code. The request goes out, the other Mac shows its approval window, and once approved the other Mac appears in your saved list. Click it to connect.

In the remote view

• The video is scaled to fit. Pointer positions are mapped so clicks land where you point.
• Remote Control in the top bar toggles input. It stays off until you turn it on, and only works if the other Mac approved this Mac with control.
• Pointer capture keeps the mouse inside the remote view; press Esc as the top bar suggests to release it.
• The quality dropdown opens the same Detail and FPS sliders the iPhone has.

PocketCtrl keeps a menu bar item while hosting so you can see status, copy addresses, and stop hosting without opening the window. Closing the window does not stop hosting; quitting the app does. Hosting also survives the screen lock, so you can connect to a locked Mac and unlock it remotely if the device has keyboard control.

PocketCtrl → Settings → Command Line → Install CLI installs a pocketctrl command in /usr/local/bin after an administrator prompt. It talks to the running app over a loopback-only API protected by a random token in the Keychain; nothing is exposed on the network. Commands: status, pairing, start, stop, restart, regenerate-pairing, and set for fps, bitrate, remote-input, audio, and more.

The same pane installs an agent skill for Codex or Claude Code, and the repository ships a small MCP server. Both use the installed CLI and contain no credentials. Details are in mcp/README.md.

Updates are manual in this release. Help → Downloads and Updates opens the download page. Quit PocketCtrl, drag the new version into Applications replacing the old one, and reopen. Saved devices, permissions, and login settings are kept.

To uninstall: stop hosting, uninstall the CLI from Settings → Command Line if you installed it, turn off launch at login, and drag PocketCtrl to the Trash. Trusted-device credentials live in the Keychain under PocketCtrl and can be removed with Keychain Access if you want a completely clean slate.