The simplest Mac remote.
Your Mac.
In your hand.
Sleep it. Mute it. Skip it. From across the room.
iPhone app + Mac agent · iOS 16+ · macOS 13+ · Free
Rimote
Talk about control.
Lights out.
One tap puts your Mac to sleep. No terminal, no AppleScript.
Brightness, from the couch.
Up or down, like a TV remote. No trip to System Settings.
Skip back. Skip ahead.
Scrub whatever's playing without touching the keyboard.
Pause. Play. Done.
One button for YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Music.
Volume, handled.
Raise it, lower it, kill it. Instantly.
Local by design
Nothing leaves the room.
Most remotes route through someone else's server. Rimote doesn't have one. Your iPhone finds your Mac over Bonjour and sends commands straight to it across your Wi-Fi. No account, no cloud, no analytics.
Found in under a second.
Your Mac announces itself over Bonjour. Open the iPhone app and it's already there.
_rimote._tcp
Bonjour discovery · your Wi-Fi only
The entire command set
Ten hardcoded actions. The agent can't run anything else. No shell, no scripts, no exceptions.
hardcoded · no shell · no eval ▌
Agent CPU · idle
0.0%
The agent sleeps until you press a button. No polling, no timers.
MIT.
Every line of the Mac agent is public. Don't trust it, read it.
read the source ↗How it works
Three steps. Thirty seconds.
agent running · starts at login
01 · step
Install the Mac agent
Download the .dmg and open it once. Rimote lives in your menu bar and starts with your Mac.
PIN from the menu bar
02 · step
Pair your iPhone
Get the iPhone app from the App Store. Your Mac is already on the list. Type the PIN once, never again.
✓ sleep · 9ms
03 · step
Control everything
Sleep it, mute it, skip the track from anywhere at home. Reconnection is automatic.
LAN only · nothing leaves your home network · no account required
FAQ
Does it work over cellular / away from home?
No. Rimote is LAN-only. Your iPhone and Mac must be on the same Wi-Fi.
Do I need to keep the app open on my iPhone?
Open it to send a command, like any remote, then close it. The agent on your Mac is what stays running, quietly, so it's always ready.
How do I install the Mac agent?
Download the signed, notarized .dmg from rimote.app/download, drag Rimote to your Applications folder, and launch it. Because it's notarized by Apple, it opens with a normal double-click.
What does Rimote actually run on my Mac?
A fixed list: pmset sleepnow, lock screen, volume commands, and system media keys. No shell access, ever.
Is any data sent to your servers?
Nothing. There are no servers. Everything stays on your Wi-Fi.
How do I uninstall?
Drag Rimote from Applications to Trash. That's it.
Put your Mac
in your pocket.
The Mac agent is free and open source. The iPhone app is on the App Store.
v1.0.0 · macOS 13+ · iOS 16+ · MIT