Pick your platform. The app installs as a PWA straight from the browser — no app stores.
Desktop app with full remote control: mouse, keyboard, audio, clipboard. Runs in the background and starts with the system.
Desktop app with full control: mouse, keyboard, clipboard, locking and shutting the Mac down remotely. Starts with the system.
Not sure which one you have: menu → “About This Mac”. If the “Chip” line says M1…M4, take the top file; if it says Intel, the bottom one.
Or open the web version without installingA desktop app with full control: mouse, keyboard, clipboard, remote lock and shutdown. Runs in the background and starts with the system.
Make the AppImage executable once: chmod +x RudyDesk-x86_64.AppImage. If mouse control does not work, install libXtst — the .deb package brings it along.
Input is unavailable in a Wayland session because Wayland itself forbids it: pick the “Xorg” session at login, otherwise you will see the screen but the mouse will not move.
Or open the web version without installingFull control of a PC from your phone: virtual trackpad, keyboard, monitor switching. What can connect to what
rudydesk.com/appAndroid will ask for permission to install from a file. Updates to such an install have to be downloaded by hand.
Control a PC from your iPhone: virtual trackpad, keyboard, gestures. What can connect to what
rudydesk.com/appTwo steps, without which the Mac will show its screen but refuse to be controlled. It asks only once.
On first open, macOS will say it cannot verify the developer. Nothing is broken: the app is not signed by Apple yet.
Right-click the file → Open, then confirm Open in the dialog. A plain double-click gives you no consent button here.
System Settings → Privacy & Security, then:
If the Mac suddenly stops responding after a system update, check these two switches first: macOS sometimes resets them without saying a word.
The connection always goes directly between two devices. The only difference is whether a device can answer the call at the moment it is dialled.
| From → to | Works | What you need |
|---|---|---|
| PC or Mac → PC or Mac | Always | Nothing. With the app installed, the computer is reachable even with the window closed — it lives in the tray or the menu bar. |
| Phone → PC or Mac | Always | Viewing works from the browser, nothing to install on the phone. Mouse and keyboard control only works if the app is running on that computer: the portable version on Windows or the app from the dmg on a Mac — why. |
| PC → Android | With notifications | Allow notifications on the phone once. Then a connection request arrives even with the screen off, and you confirm it. |
| PC → iPhone | Only from the installed app | On the iPhone, open the site in Safari, add it to the Home Screen and allow notifications. A normal browser tab — and Chrome on iPhone — has no notifications, so waking it is impossible. |
| Phone → Phone | With notifications | Same as above for the receiving phone. Two phones are rarely “online” at the same moment, so without notifications this almost never works. |
Watching someone else’s screen works from any browser. But moving the cursor and typing is only possible from a program installed on the computer being controlled. A browser tab is not allowed to move the system mouse — that is a browser rule, the same for every remote access service.
Someone opened rudydesk.com and shared their screen. You see their desktop, you can chat and send files. Mouse and keyboard do not work, and the app says so plainly.
Good for a quick look at what is on someone’s screen.
On Windows it is a single file, RudyDesk-Portable.exe, with no installer and no admin rights. On a Mac it is the app from the dmg, which needs two permissions once. After that the mouse, keyboard and clipboard work, and nobody has to share their screen every time.
It goes on the computer being controlled. Nothing needs to be installed on the phone you control from.
A phone counts as reachable only while the app is open on screen. Put it in your pocket and it drops off the network within seconds. That is a limit of iOS and Android themselves, not of RudyDesk. There is one way around it: allow notifications so the server can wake it.
Only a PC with the portable version: it sits in the tray, starts with the system and accepts connections with nobody present — by password and whitelist. No remote access app can make a phone work that way.
The web version (PWA) supports every remote control feature too, except autostart and running in the tray.