🖥️ Live Screen
The Live Screen shows a running VM's display on your iPhone or iPad and sends your touch and keyboard input back to it — no VNC or extra setup.
Requirements
- The CLI Server must be running on your Mac
- The VM must be running (or installing macOS)
- The VM must have a display — headless VMs are supported too
Opening the Screen
Open a running VM and tap Open Screen, or open a VM's live screen from a Shortcut.
👆 Touch Controls
| Gesture | Action |
|---|---|
| Tap | Click |
| Drag | Click and drag |
| Long press | Right-click |
| Two-finger pinch | Zoom in or out |
| Two-finger drag | Move around when zoomed |
| Two-finger double-tap | Switch between fit-to-screen and actual size |
| Three-finger drag | Scroll inside the VM |
A hardware keyboard works directly. On screen, tap the keyboard button to show or hide the keyboard. If your keyboard has a trackpad (or you have a Bluetooth mouse connected), its two-finger scroll or scroll wheel also scrolls inside the VM — no need to lift onto the screen for three fingers.
🧰 Toolbar
| Button | Action |
|---|---|
| Stream settings (gauge) | Frame rate, quality and the stream info bar |
| USB | Attach or detach USB devices (see below) |
| Memory balloon | Give memory back to your Mac (see below) |
| Fit / Actual size | Switch between fitting the screen and 1:1 |
| Keyboard | Show or hide the on-screen keyboard |
| Refresh | Ask for a fresh frame |
| Stop | Force-stop an installation (shown only while macOS is installing) |
The screen reconnects automatically after a network interruption.
📡 Stream Settings
| Setting | Description |
|---|---|
| Frame Rate | Auto adapts to your connection. Fixed rates: 1, 3, 5, 8, 10, 15, 20, 25 and 30 fps |
| Quality | Best available (HW) uses hardware video when the Mac offers it. Also H.265 (HW), H.264 (HW), Best (PNG) and High / Medium / Low (JPEG) |
| Show Stream Info | A bar at the top with the codec, frame rate, resolution, throughput and latency |
Tip: Leave Frame Rate on Auto and Quality on Best available (HW). Hardware H.265 is the smoothest option with the lowest bandwidth. Use JPEG only if hardware video is unavailable.
Your choices become the new defaults, which you can also set in Settings.
🔌 USB Devices
Attach a USB device connected to your Mac to the running VM.
- Tap the USB button (also available in the VM details)
- Tap a device under Available to attach it
- Tap a device under Attached to detach it
After detaching, the device returns to Available within a few seconds. Devices used by another VM appear under In Use by Other VMs.
Note: USB passthrough requires a macOS 27+ Mac and a running VM.
🎚️ Memory Balloon
For a VM with a memory balloon, the memory chip button lets you lower the memory it holds and hand the rest back to your Mac. Move the slider (256 MB up to the configured memory, in 64 MB steps) and tap Apply; Reset to Max restores it. The guest may not release everything at once.