See your Mac.
Control it too.

Overview

MeowDisplay turns an iPhone or iPad into another display for your Mac — and a way to control it. Mirror what you see or extend your workspace, then work from the receiver with touch, a trackpad-style pointer, gestures, a keyboard, and trays of modifiers and shortcuts.

MeowDisplay isn’t trying to replace a full remote desktop client. It’s built for a more direct experience: your Mac as a real display on iPhone or iPad, with touch, keyboard, gestures and Apple Pencil going straight back to it.

New to MeowDisplay? Start with Setup.

Mirror & Extend

Mirror

The receiver shows the same Mac display you see, and follows along as you work. When more than one physical display is connected, choose which one to mirror. Mirror needs an active physical Mac display.

Extend

MeowDisplay adds a separate virtual display to your Mac, and the receiver becomes another workspace. Move windows onto it and arrange it alongside your other displays in macOS. Where supported, Extend shape controls let you tune the virtual display to the receiver, including an option to use the full display.

Choose the mode in the Mac app, or ask for a switch from the receiver’s Settings; the Mac confirms the change.

Clamshell & headless

Extend creates a virtual display in software, so your iPhone or iPad can be your Mac’s screen without an extra monitor or a dummy HDMI or display adapter.

• Clamshell. Close your MacBook’s lid and keep working from your iPhone or iPad with Extend. Keep the MacBook connected to power while the lid is closed.
• Headless. MeowDisplay is designed to work with no monitor attached, such as a Mac mini on a shelf. Headless setups are still being tested across more Macs, so treat them as a supported goal rather than a guarantee on every model.
• Mirror needs a display to copy. With no active physical display, MeowDisplay offers to switch the session to Extend instead of simply failing.

MeowDisplay targets a Mac with a logged-in user session that sleeps or locks. A Mac that is fully powered off or at the login window is outside the current supported workflow.

Devices

MeowDisplay receivers are iPhone and iPad, plus the display-only Mac Receiver for using another Mac as a display (its keyboard and trackpad aren’t sent to the other Mac). Each device pairs once with your Mac, then appears in Devices in the Mac app.

• Active Display lists each connected device and how it’s connected, such as “Mirroring to iPhone · USB”, with Pause and Disconnect.
• Known Devices lists paired devices as Connected, Paired · Nearby or Paired · Offline. Connect with Mirror or Extend, open a device’s settings, or Forget it.
• Nearby shows devices that aren’t paired yet, ready to Pair. Pair over Remote pairs a device over a private network.
• Automatically Allow Connections lets a paired device start sharing without asking, and each device can be set to Default, Always Allow or Block. None of these allow input.

A device’s own settings hold its Input Requests policy, Extend shape, maximum frame rate and receiver controls.

Control your Mac

A receiver becomes an input device for your Mac, with touch, pointer, gestures, keyboard and shortcut trays, only when Allow Input is on, the Mac has Accessibility permission, and that session has been allowed to control the Mac. Pausing the stream also pauses input.

Allow Input

Allow Input in the Mac’s Input settings is the master switch for remote control. While it’s off, no connected device can control the Mac, no matter what it was previously granted. Devices can still connect and show the Mac.

Control requests

• Every new session starts with input off. Connecting never turns input on by itself.
• To control the Mac, the receiver has to ask. Use Request Control in the receiver’s Settings.
• Each device has an Input Requests policy on the Mac. Ask shows a prompt on the Mac for every request. Always Allow Requests skips the prompt, but the device still has to ask each session. Never Allow Requests declines them.
• Until a session has input, the receiver hides its control tray. Its Settings gear stays reachable.
• Take control back from the Mac with Revoke Control in the device’s settings, or give it back from the receiver with Turn Off.

Input modes

Choose an Input Mode in the receiver’s Settings.

Direct Touch

Touch maps directly to the matching position on the Mac display. Tap a button and the pointer goes right there.

Trackpad

• The Mac pointer moves relatively, like a MacBook trackpad.
• Touching doesn’t jump the cursor to the spot you touched.
• Adjust Trackpad Sensitivity to suit the size of your receiver.
• Multi-finger gestures continue to work.
• Turn Video off in Settings to use the receiver purely as a trackpad and keyboard. The connection, trays and selected input mode stay active.

Precise Control

A fingertip covers exactly the spot you’re aiming at. Precise Control lets you keep one finger down and use another to fine-tune the pointer and click exactly where it points. It works in Direct Touch and Trackpad, and there’s nothing to turn on.

Direct Touch

• Touch near the target. The pointer goes there, as usual.
• Keep that finger down and add another finger anywhere on the screen. Pointer movement becomes relative, so the pointer no longer snaps under either finger.
• Move either finger to line the pointer up with small targets. It follows your movement on the picture, so pinching in to zoom the view makes it finer still.
• Tap the added finger to click at the pointer. Double- and triple-tap for double- and triple-click; tap, then hold and move, to drag from that exact spot.
• With one finger resting, tap two more fingers together to right-click.
• Lift every finger to finish. Your next touch is ordinary Direct Touch again.

Trackpad

• The pointer moves relatively from the first touch, so the finer control is there from the start.
• Rest one finger for a moment, then tap another to click at the pointer without moving it. Double- and triple-tap for double- and triple-click.
• Tap, then hold and move, to drag from where the pointer is.
• With one finger resting, tap two more fingers together to right-click. An ordinary two-finger tap still right-clicks too.
• Trackpad Sensitivity scales how far the pointer moves.

Smart Touch Experimental

Smart Touch uses interface context to make Direct Touch feel more natural. It asks the Mac what’s under your finger when you touch down, and acts only when the answer is clear. When MeowDisplay can’t identify the interface reliably, it falls back to normal Direct Touch.

• One-finger scrolling. In supported scrollable areas, such as lists, tables, documents, spreadsheets and web pages, a one-finger swipe scrolls with momentum instead of moving the pointer: up, down, sideways and diagonally. A clearly vertical or horizontal swipe stays locked to that direction; a diagonal swipe moves both ways, as in a large spreadsheet in Google Sheets.
• Hold a title bar to move the window. Touch and hold the title bar or empty toolbar space of a standard macOS window. A soft haptic builds while you hold; after half a second a short tick confirms, and the window follows your finger until you lift. Moving before the tick is ordinary Direct Touch, and a quick tap is still a click. Window buttons, toolbar buttons, search fields and other controls are never treated as title bar.
• Touch and hold for Direct Touch. Anywhere else Smart Touch acts, hold still for a moment before moving and that touch switches to normal Direct Touch, confirmed with a haptic.
• Smart Touch Haptics controls both hold haptics and is on by default. It stays silent whenever Haptics is off, and turning it off never changes the gestures, only the feedback.
• Optional and off by default. Turn it on under Input in the receiver’s Settings when Direct Touch is selected. It has no effect in Trackpad mode.
• It adds to Direct Touch rather than replacing anything: taps, double and triple taps, tap-then-hold drags, two-finger scroll, pinch, rotate and Mac gestures all work exactly as before.
• Works best with apps that expose standard macOS accessibility information. It uses the Accessibility permission the Mac app already has for input.

Pointer & clicks

Scroll, zoom & rotate

Scroll

Pan with two fingers to scroll on the Mac, with natural momentum.

Pinch & zoom

Choose what a two-finger pinch or spread does:

• Viewport: zooms the local MeowDisplay view on the receiver.
• App: an experimental option that sends configurable keyboard commands to the Mac app in front, such as zoom in and zoom out.
• Disabled: ignores pinch.

Rotate

Two-finger rotation offers the same choice of Viewport, App, or Disabled. Turn on Snap Rotation to settle the viewport at clean angles.

Reset the view

Double-tap with two fingers to reset or restore the manual viewport zoom and pan.

Mac gestures

Familiar multi-finger gestures reach macOS directly.

Apple Pencil

Use Apple Pencil for precise input on supported iPad models.

• Pencil strokes reach the Mac as pen-tablet input, separate from your fingers.
• Tilt travels with every stroke.
• On iPads that support Pencil hover, the pointer follows the tip before it touches the screen.
• Strokes are sent at the iPad’s full touch sample rate.
• Fingers resting on the screen are ignored while the Pencil tip is down.
• Tap to click and double-tap to double-click with the tip.

Apple Pencil support is still evolving, with additional capabilities and refinements planned for future releases.

Main Control Tray

The Main Control Tray keeps the keys a touch screen is missing close at hand: Command, Option, Control, Shift, Escape, Tab, Toggle Dock, Keyboard, and Settings.

• Modifier latching: tap a modifier to hold it for your next click, gesture, or key.
• Chords: latch several modifiers together, such as ⌘⇧.
• Chords: latch a modifier and a palette of matching shortcuts appears beside it — Copy, Paste and Undo with ⌘, Force Quit and Hide Others with ⌘⌥, Redo and Screenshot with ⌘⇧. Choose the actions each palette offers.
• Arrange: reorder controls and show or hide each one.
• Profiles: keep multiple setups and switch between them.

In Settings, use Show Control Tray, Collapse Control Tray, and Show Keyboard Button to decide how much of the tray you see. Haptics adds tactile feedback, Landscape Tray Side picks where the tray sits in landscape, and Avoid Notch keeps it clear of the camera housing.

There when you need it. Out of the way when you don’t.

With Auto-hide, the Control Tray can automatically retreat after a short period of inactivity, leaving the display clear while keeping controls close at hand.

• Interacting with the tray keeps it visible, so it never hides mid-use.
• It’s easy to reveal again whenever you need it.
• Auto-hide works alongside manual Show, Hide, and Collapse, and can be turned off.
• Settings always remains reachable.

Function Tray

The Function Tray is a separate set of immediate, one-tap actions. By default it offers Zoom In, Zoom Out, Undo, and Redo.

• Works independently of the Main Control Tray, with its own profiles.
• Show or hide individual items, and reorder them.
• Place it on the Same Side as the Main Control Tray or the Opposite Side.

Keyboard

Type into your Mac from the receiver. Tap the tray’s Keyboard button to bring up the on-screen keyboard, or use a hardware keyboard connected to your iPhone or iPad. Latched modifiers from the Control Tray combine with the keys you type.

Audio

Mac system audio can stream to the receiver while the Mac keeps playing locally. Turn it on with the Audio toggle on the receiver. If sound and picture drift apart, adjust A/V Sync or tap Resync.

Picture in Picture

On iPhone and iPad, keep your Mac in view while you use another app. MeowDisplay uses the system’s own Picture in Picture window, showing the same live stream as the receiver.

• Starts when you leave. With Picture in Picture on (the default) and a live session showing your Mac, leaving MeowDisplay moves the picture into a floating window. You can also start it from the receiver’s Settings.
• View-only. The window is for glancing at what your Mac is doing. Touches in it never reach the Mac; all control stays in the full receiver.
• One tap back. The window’s restore button returns you to the full MeowDisplay receiver.
• Audio. If the receiver’s Audio is on, Mac audio can keep playing while the window shows. Leaving the app without Picture in Picture stays silent.
• Your choice. Turn Picture in Picture off in the receiver’s Settings and leaving the app never starts it.

Picture in Picture is new, and real-device testing is ongoing.

Connections

• USB: plug in a data-capable cable and trust the Mac.
• Local Wi-Fi: discover the receiver on your network, including nearby peer-to-peer Wi-Fi.
• Remote Access: reach a paired Mac over a private network you control.

See USB & local Wi-Fi setup.

Remote & reconnect

Save a reachable endpoint for Remote Access, then Connect. Auto-Reconnect recovers the session whenever the connection becomes available again.

Wake & Connect

MeowDisplay can remember what it needs to wake a paired Mac on its local network, where the Mac supports it. Wake & Connect sends a Wake-on-LAN packet, then tries to bring your session back.

• Turn on Wake for Network Access on the Mac. Compatible hardware and network setup are required.
• It works best when something on the Mac’s local network can deliver the wake packet.
• Over a private network such as Tailscale, a sleeping Mac can’t relay its own wake packet. Waking it remotely may need another reachable device, router or node on that network.
• It’s designed for a logged-in Mac that has gone to sleep or locked — not for a cold boot or a logged-out Mac.

Wake & Connect reaches the Mac; Auto-Reconnect restores the connection once it’s there. See Wake & reconnect in Setup.

Security

Devices pair once through trusted pairing: you compare a matching verification code (SAS) on both screens. After that, every connection is encrypted and mutually authenticated with TLS 1.3 against the pinned peer identity you trusted.

Read more in Privacy and the security model.