Sill: control any Mac window from your iPhone or iPad, free and open source

What Sill does

Sill is two apps. Sill for Mac lives in the menu bar and comes from getsill.app. Sill for iPhone and iPad is on the App Store as "Sill - Mac Streaming". You pick a window on your device and it appears live. Your taps, scrolls, clicks and keystrokes go back to the Mac as mouse and keyboard events. You can stream the whole desktop too, but one window at a time is what makes it feel different from a normal remote desktop.

The developer is Noah Saffer, and the code is under the Apache 2.0 license on GitHub. Both apps are free. A tip through GitHub Sponsors is optional and unlocks nothing.

How it works

The Mac app captures the window with ScreenCaptureKit and encodes it as HEVC video through VideoToolbox, using the Mac's hardware encoder (it falls back to software when the encoder is busy). The picture travels over TLS 1.3 to your iPhone or iPad. When the encoder or the link falls behind, Sill drops frames instead of queueing them, so what you see stays current. While no device is connected, it captures nothing.

Four ways to connect your iPhone or iPad to your Mac

• Same Wi-Fi network. Your device finds the Mac with Bonjour.
• A USB cable. The Mac shows up as Wired, and the device pairs by itself while the Mac is unlocked.
• Direct Wireless Connection. This uses peer-to-peer Wi-Fi, the way AirDrop does, for when the two share no network. It is off by default.
• Remote Access. You reach the Mac through your own VPN, such as Tailscale, or through a port you forward on your router. It is off by default too.

You pair each device once, either by scanning the code your Mac shows or by typing its 12 digits. After that, every connection is pinned to those keys. You can remove a device any time in Sill's Settings on the Mac, under Devices.

How to set it up

1. 1Download Sill for Mac from getsill.app (opens in a new tab), drag it into Applications and open it.
2. 2Allow Screen Recording and Accessibility when it asks. If macOS offers Quit & Reopen, take it.
3. 3Install Sill on your iPhone or iPad from the App Store, open it and allow Local Network.
4. 4Tap your Mac, pair once, then pick a window from the bar.

You need a Mac with Apple silicon on macOS 14 or later, and an iPhone or iPad on iOS or iPadOS 17 or later. On macOS 15 or later, also allow Local Network for Sill on the Mac.

Small details that matter on a phone

The Aa control resizes the window on the Mac, so text ends up the size you want on a small screen. On iPadOS 26 or later, the app's menus show in the iPad's own menu bar. Elsewhere they sit behind a Menus button. Three-finger swipes and pinches trigger Mission Control, App Exposé and Spaces through the shortcuts your Mac already has. Clipboard sharing works in both directions for text.

There is also an optional virtual display that keeps a streamed window updating even when other windows cover it. It relies on a private macOS API, which is one reason Sill for Mac isn't in the Mac App Store.

Limits worth knowing

Sill shows one window or the desktop at a time, and it doesn't play sound from your Mac. Remote Access only works while the Mac is awake with Sill running, and Sill can't wake a sleeping Mac. The version numbers are still below 1.0.

One security note: Sill for Mac 0.3.1 and earlier did not encrypt local connections. Update if you installed an early build, and leave Require pairing switched on.

Who it suits

It fits you if you want a single terminal, editor or app window on an iPad or iPhone, and the rest of the desktop is just in the way. If you need sound or several windows at once, a full remote desktop tool will probably suit you better.

The project is young. The repository was created on September 22, 2026, and a tools-radar review on October 21 counted about 3,750 stars and 95 open issues.

FAQ

Sources

1. 01Source code: github.com/Saffsanity/sill (opens in a new tab)
2. 02Download and App Store link: getsill.app (opens in a new tab)
3. 03Troubleshooting and pairing details: getsill.app/support (opens in a new tab)

Elsewhere on this site

The Agent Skills case study covers reusable instructions for coding agents. The selected work catalogue lists the products shipped around writing like this.