Docs

Overview

What Nearshell is, who it's for, and how it differs from other remote desktops.

Nearshell is an Apple-native one-to-one remote controller built for coding workflows. The macOS side captures the screen and executes input; the iPhone / iPad side drives it remotely — the two connect end-to-end encrypted, so your screen and keystrokes can’t be decrypted or observed even when they pass through our relay servers.

Who it’s for

Developers who want to briefly take over their dev machine from an iPhone / iPad — on the couch, in bed, on the go;
People who need to run a command, tail a log, or click one thing while out, without carrying a laptop;
People who care about privacy and won’t hand a screen stream to a service that can see its contents.

How it’s different

A typical remote desktop mirrors an entire desktop plus mouse and keyboard onto another screen. Nearshell instead redesigns every layer around operating one dev machine efficiently from a touch device:

Native, not a cross-platform shell — Swift 6.2 + ScreenCaptureKit + Metal, no Electron, no middle layer.
Control designed for touch — the whole screen is a trackpad: one-finger move, two-finger scroll / zoom, long-press drag, two-finger right click, instead of forcing a desktop mouse onto a phone.
It understands terminals and keyboards — direct terminal text, a keyboard with both IME composition and raw key-passthrough, and shortcuts like ⌘Tab passed through verbatim.
Focused-window mode — capture and control just the current focused window to cut visual and bandwidth load.
End-to-end encrypted — screen and input stay encrypted the whole way; not even we can see your content.

How to get it

iPhone / iPad — install from the App Store (coming soon);
Mac — a free download, Apple-notarized and installed directly, no App Store needed;
Subscription — a 14-day free trial, one Mac free, and unlimited devices once you subscribe. See Getting started.

Platform baseline

Item	Version
macOS	26
iOS / iPadOS	16.3+
Connectivity	Direct-first · nearest-TURN fallback when needed (still encrypted)

Nearshell is in the final stretch before launch. To hear the moment sign-ups open, join the waitlist on the home page.

Curious how it works? Continue to Getting started or How it works.