Everything Reach Desktop does, and how to check it

Real screen as hardware video

HowThe Mac captures its display with ScreenCaptureKit, encodes it on the graphics processor as H.264 or HEVC video in real time, and streams it over Web Real-Time Communication (WebRTC), the same approach Parsec and Moonlight use for game streaming.

CheckDrag a window or play a video on the Mac: motion stays smooth, and a dropped packet is concealed by the protocol rather than freezing the picture.

Measured picture speed

ResultOn September 1, 2026, Reach Desktop 0.58.119 showed each frame on the viewing Mac a median of 68.1 ms after the Mac being reached painted it (51.7 ms to 73.5 ms from the 10th to the 90th percentile), at 49.9 frames per second delivered, with every one of the 2,413 sampled frames readable.

HowA test program built for this runs on both Macs: it paints a numbered pattern on the Mac being reached, reads which frame is showing in the viewer window, and subtracts the two timestamps after correcting for the clock difference between the Macs. The reading includes about 9 ms of the test program's own timing. It comes from one 46.5-second run.

ScopeA MacBook Air 15-inch (M5) viewing a MacBook Pro with an M1 Max chip, connected directly over Wi-Fi on the local network, at the Mac's full 3456x2234 resolution with one session streaming. The Wi-Fi link averaged 34.6 ms round trip during the run.

Full 4:4:4 color

HowWhere the viewer can decode it, Reach's own encoder sends 4:4:4 HEVC. Measured offline at 3456x2234 and 20 Mbps, colored text edges stay within 1.4% of the source (standard 4:2:0 softens them 1.9% to 4.3%), and one-pixel color detail keeps 27.6% of its contrast instead of 16.1%. Stream Quality and a bitrate ceiling let you pick the balance.

CheckOpen colored syntax-highlighted code on the Mac and zoom in on the viewer: red and blue text keeps clean edges.

Server-side zoom

HowWhen you pinch, the Mac re-crops the stream at native resolution, so the zoomed region arrives as new, sharper pixels rather than an enlargement of the ones already on your screen.

CheckPinch into small text: it sharpens a moment after the pinch settles.

Every monitorPro

HowA picker shows each of the Mac's displays as a live, labeled thumbnail; tap one to switch mid-session.

CheckOn a Mac with two displays, open the picker and switch between them.

Mac audioPro

HowThe Mac's sound streams alongside the video.

CheckPlay a sound on the Mac and hear it on the iPhone or iPad.

Tap to click, trackpad, full keyboard

HowA tap clicks exactly where you touch. A relative trackpad mode adds momentum scrolling for precision. The keyboard sends compound chords such as Command-Space, and a quick-actions dock holds the shortcuts you choose.

CheckTap a button on the Mac; then switch to trackpad mode and scroll a long page.

Voice into any Mac text field

HowTap a Mac text field and speak; the words land in that field on the Mac. The voice bar follows the focused field around the screen, and the keyboard appears on its own when a field is focused.

CheckTap a Mac text field from your iPhone, dictate a sentence, and read it on the Mac.

Virtual Mac keys on iPad

HowOn iPad, a deck adds the Mac shortcuts iPadOS reserves for itself: Command-Tab, Mission Control, Spotlight, Show Desktop, Screenshot, Right Click and Clipboard, each sending the Mac's own chord.

CheckOn an iPad Pro 13-inch in landscape, tap the app switcher key: the Mac's Command-Tab switcher opens.

Slipstream: one window from another Mac

HowIn a session to another Mac, the Slipstream button (top right of the session, and in the Mac control ribbon as Bring a Window Over) lists that Mac's windows. Pick one and it opens as its own window on your Mac: it sits among your own windows, resizes like a real window, and your typing goes to it. The window reshapes on the far Mac to match the size you give it, so the app lays itself out for the space it has instead of being scaled into it. The rest of the far Mac stays where it is.

CheckOpen a session to another Mac, press Slipstream, choose a TextEdit window, and drag its new window to half the size: the text reflows at the new size.

A Dock icon for a window you use often

HowIn the Slipstream picker, right-click a window and choose Make a Dock icon. The icon carries that app's own icon; a click reconnects to that Mac when needed and brings the same app's window over. Settings lists your windows and Dock icons and removes either.

CheckMake a Dock icon for a window, close the session, then click the icon.

Buttons press where you click, and the far Mac stays put

HowA click on a button, checkbox, radio button, disclosure triangle or link in a Slipstream window presses that control through macOS Accessibility on the far Mac. Its pointer stays where it was, the window keeps its place in the stack, and a window covered by other windows still takes the press. Text, drawing, drags, menus and modifier-clicks go through as ordinary input.

CheckBring Calculator over from another Mac and click its 7 key: the display reads 7, and on the far Mac the pointer and the frontmost app are the same as before the click.

You choose what a paired device may take

HowOn the Mac being reached, Settings has a switch, Let paired devices bring a window from this Mac. A device asks for one window by name, and typing reaches only a window that was handed over.

An agent interface on each Mac

HowReach Desktop runs a local agent interface on the Mac (127.0.0.1, port 9786) so an AI agent, such as Claude Code, can work with that Mac while you keep using it. An agent can list windows, including covered ones, capture one still frame of a window, find controls through Accessibility, press a button or menu item by its label, set a field's value, type text, send key chords to a chosen app, and click at a point inside an app. Controls are pressed through Accessibility without moving your cursor, and the frontmost app stays as it was; each acting reply reports the frontmost app before and after.

CheckWith the interface switched on, ask an agent to press a button in a window behind the one you are using: the button presses and your frontmost app and cursor stay put.

Switched on by you, signed per launch, logged

HowYou switch the interface on in a settings file on the Mac (~/.config/reachmymac/agent-verbs.json). Every request carries a token that Reach writes when it starts and replaces at the next launch. Reading (windows, a frame, finding controls) is open as soon as it is on; acting runs when the Mac has had no input for five minutes or is locked, or any time you set actWhilePresent for that Mac. A repeated request with the same id acts once. Every action is one line in ~/Library/Logs/ReachDesktop/agent-actions.jsonl: the verb, the window, the size of what was typed and the result.

CheckOpen the log after an agent session and read the lines.

App Focus

HowPick one app (Claude, Codex, Cursor, a terminal, a render). The Mac crops the stream to that app's windows and masks everything else black on the Mac, before a single pixel is encoded. Reach remembers the choice per Mac. Phone Shape resizes that app's window to the aspect ratio of the screen in your hand.

CheckTurn on App Focus with a second app open beside it: only the chosen app reaches your phone; the rest is black.

Face ID session lock and encrypted transport

HowSessions are gated behind Face ID on iPhone and iPad. On your home network the Mac and iPhone connect directly; away from home the stream is encrypted in transit through a relay that only forwards packets and stores nothing.

Direct at home, automatic anywherePro

HowAt home the connection is direct over your local network. Away, on cellular or overseas, Reach fails over to a private relay on its own within seconds. The Mac publishes to both paths from one capture, so the handoff costs nothing.

CheckStart a session on home Wi-Fi, turn off Wi-Fi on the iPhone, and keep watching over cellular.

Set-and-forget host

HowA menu-bar app on the Mac shows Off, Ready or Connected, starts at login, and a watchdog restarts it if it stops.

CheckQuit the host app and watch it come back.

One sign-in, every device

HowSign in once with Google or Apple. Devices and the Pro unlock belong to your account, so a new Mac takes a sign-in, and adding a device is a QR code scan. One Pro unlock covers iPhone and iPad.

A dedicated layout for every screen

HowEvery iPhone gets the full Mac edge to edge, with controls folded into the corners. iPad Pro 13-inch and iPad Air 13-inch get a keyboard deck under the Mac's screen: the Mac ribbon over a row of virtual keys. 11-inch iPads get one slim function row. The iPad mini keeps the Mac full screen with a slim control rail on its right edge. The layout is chosen from the measured space on the screen, so Split View and Stage Manager windows get the right one too.

CheckRotate an iPad mid-session, or resize it in Stage Manager: the layout changes with the space. Full list: every iPhone, iPad and Mac.