Screen

Opening a screen

Open a screen with the Screen button on the host's page, from a link or the Shortcuts app's Connect action, or by Handoff. On a Mac or an iPad with a keyboard, the Connect menu has Screen, ⌥⌘1.

While it opens, the Screen button shows each step: Checking the screen, Connecting over SSH when it goes that way, and Signing in, with Cancel. On a Mac the screen opens in a window of its own; on iPhone and iPad it opens in the Sessions tab.

If you have a saved password for the screen, Conn signs in straight away. If not, it asks the screen which sign in it wants and shows the right sheet. A screen with no password at all just opens.

Watching and controlling

A screen opens for watching: you see it, and nothing you do reaches it. Turn on Control to click and type on it, and off again to go back to watching. If you start typing while watching, a Watching only pill offers Control.

To have a host's screen open in Control every time, set Start In to Control in Edit Host, Screen. Switching during a session doesn't change that setting. In Sessions, a screen's row says Watching or Controlling.

While watching, you see the pointer of whoever is at the machine. Watching a Raspberry Pi, you see it where it was when the screen last changed.

Signing in

Conn asks for whatever the screen wants, and prefers the most secure kind it offers.

Machine	What you type	Good to know
A Mac (Screen Sharing)	The name and password of an account on that Mac: the ones you log in with	Up to 63 bytes each: 63 plain letters and digits, fewer with accented letters. Which accounts may connect is set on the Mac in Screen Sharing's settings.
A Raspberry Pi (WayVNC)	The name and password of an account on the Pi: the one you log in with at its desktop	Encrypted by the Pi's own screen. Up to 255 bytes each.
Other VNC servers	The VNC password set on the server	VNC uses only the first 8 characters, and Conn says so if you type more.
A screen with no password	Nothing	It opens straight away.

The sheet has Use and Save and Use Once:

• Use and Save keeps the password, but only once it has worked. A Mac or Raspberry Pi account password is kept on this device behind Face ID or Touch ID (on a Mac, Touch ID or your login password). A VNC password is kept in this device's Keychain.
• Use Once keeps nothing. The password stays in memory until you close the screen, so a reconnect can use it.
• Saved passwords never sync. Your other devices ask once and keep it there.

When a screen goes over SSH and you type an SSH password, Conn offers the same name and password to the Mac's or Pi's screen once, inside that SSH connection, so you often sign in only once. It never sends it to a screen that goes direct.

How the screen travels

Each host's Connection setting, in Edit Host, Screen, decides how its screen is reached:

Automatic (the default)

Uses Tailscale, SSH, or a screen this device has seen encrypt itself, in that order. If none of those is possible, it asks before going straight to the screen.

SSH

Always goes over SSH. Conn signs in to the machine over SSH first, checking its SSH key as a terminal does, then reaches the screen from there. The whole way is encrypted.

Direct

Always goes straight to the screen's port. It's encrypted only if Tailscale carries it or the screen encrypts itself (as a Raspberry Pi's usually does). Edit Host always shows Not encrypted under Direct, because it can't know which route a screen will take.

Over SSH

Over SSH, the machine's SSH server connects to its own screen at 127.0.0.1, on the port in Port on the machine. Left empty, that's the screen port of the host's local address, usually 5900. No port is opened on your device, and the connection closes with the screen. A host with a jump host goes through it. For this to work:

• the machine needs SSH on: on a Mac, Remote Login;
• its SSH server must allow forwarding (AllowTcpForwarding yes, OpenSSH's default);
• the screen must listen on that port on the machine itself.

Tailscale

A route counts as Tailscale only when its address is the machine's own tailnet address (in 100.64.0.0/10, Tailscale's IPv6 range, or a MagicDNS name), and Conn checks the connection itself really went over Tailscale before it sends anything. If it didn't, Conn sends nothing and chooses again without Tailscale. Addresses reached through a Tailscale subnet router don't count.

Connect Directly

When Automatic finds no encrypted way, it shows Connect Directly is not encrypted under the Screen button, with the reason (no SSH sign in, Remote Login off, forwarding off and so on), and the buttons Connect Directly and Cancel, plus Use SSH when SSH might work.

• Connecting directly isn't encrypted: others on the network can read what you type and what the screen shows, and a Mac's sign in this way doesn't prove which machine answered.
• The choice is kept for that one address only, and syncs with the host. Another address asks again.
• Edit Host, Screen lists the addresses as Not encrypted to with Forget, which makes Conn ask again.
• If SSH later starts answering on a host with Terminal on that you chose Connect Directly for, Conn asks once more: Use SSH (encrypted, and forgets the direct choice) or Keep Direct.
• If a screen goes direct to an address this device hasn't reached the host at, but has reached it at another, Conn asks first, as SSH does.

The padlock

An open padlock by a screen's name means it travels without encryption. Tap or click it to see why. A screen that's encrypted, over SSH, Tailscale or its own encryption, shows no padlock. On a Mac the padlock sits in the window's toolbar and can't be removed.

Screen keys

A screen that encrypts itself (a Raspberry Pi's, for example) has a key of its own. Conn keeps it the first time a sign in with it works. If the key changes, Conn stops before sending anything and shows both fingerprints: Replace the Stored Key or Do Not Connect. If the screen stops using its key, Conn offers Forget the Stored Key; if it stops offering encryption, Connect Without Encryption. Do Not Connect is always there.

Pointer, touch and trackpad

On iPhone and iPad

Choose a style from Trackpad in the bar (or the ⋯ menu on a narrow screen), or set the default in Settings. Trackpad styles show only while you control the screen.

Style	How it works
Trackpad (default)	A pad along the bottom of a narrow window, or in a corner of a wide one. Drag its handle to move it.
Full Screen Trackpad	The whole screen is the pad, with Left and Right buttons.
Touch	The pointer goes where your finger lands. The Right Click button makes the next tap a right click.
Off	No pad, for a mouse or trackpad connected to an iPad.

• Move: slide one finger. Click: tap. Double click: tap twice.
• Drag something, such as a window: tap, then touch again straight away and drag.
• Right click: tap with two fingers. Scroll: drag with two fingers.
• In the Trackpad and Off styles, tapping the picture itself, outside the pad, moves the pointer there and clicks.
• Precise Trackpad, in the Trackpad menu, moves the pointer slowly and evenly for small targets.
• A mouse or trackpad connected to an iPad works the screen directly: right button for a right click, middle button for a middle click.

On a Mac

With Control on, your pointer and keyboard work the screen: click, right click, drag and scroll as you would on the machine itself. While you control it, the pointer takes the machine's cursor shape. Zoomed in, holding the pointer near an edge moves the picture.

Scroll Speed

Scroll Speed in Settings sets how far a scroll goes, from 0.5× to 200×. The default, 30×, makes a Mac's Screen Sharing scroll as far as your fingers do; other screens take a thirtieth of the setting. iPhoneiPad Natural Scrolling (on by default) makes the screen move with your fingers on the on-screen pad.

The magnifier

iPhoneiPad Magnifier, in the ⋯ menu, shows part of the screen up close at 2×, 3× or 4× (Magnification).

• Follows Pointer keeps the magnifier beside the pointer.
• Move by Hand leaves it where you drag its handle and shows what's under its middle. In Touch, a tap on it clicks what it shows.
• Drag its corner to resize it. It's off each time a screen opens.

The keyboard

On iPhone and iPad

While controlling, the Keyboard button brings up the keyboard with a bar of keys above it:

• The first page: Hide Keyboard, Escape, Tab, ⇧, ⌃, ⌥, ⌘, the arrows, fn, and a last key for paste and macros.
• fn: F1 to F12, Forward Delete, Home, End, Page Up and Page Down.
• The last key: Paste as Typing, Paste, App Switcher (⌘Tab), Spotlight (⌘Space), then your macros: this device's, then this host's.
• Tap ⌘, ⌥, ⌃ or ⇧ and it applies to the next key. Tap it twice to keep it on, and once more to turn it off.
• Held arrows, Backspace, Forward Delete, Page Up and Page Down repeat.

With the keyboard up, the picture moves to keep the pointer in view above it.

With a hardware keyboard, on iPad and Mac

While a screen in Control has the keyboard, keyboard shortcuts go to the screen, not to Conn, all but ⌘Q on a Mac. Tab, the arrows and Escape go to the screen too. Press ⌃⌥⎋ to hand the keyboard back to Conn. Clicks still reach the screen, and a click on the screen takes the keyboard again; type then, and an Enable keyboard pill offers Enable.

The system keeps some shortcuts for itself, such as ⌘Tab and ⌘Space. Mac Send Keys, in the Screen menu and the ⋯ menu, sends App Switcher, Spotlight and the host's macros to the screen. Characters typed with dead keys, input methods or Option come out as your keyboard layout makes them.

Macros

A macro sends a key combination, such as ⌃⌥Delete. Add them in Edit Host, Screen (Macros for this host), or on iPhone and iPad also in Settings (Macros on this device), with Add Macro: a Name, the modifier switches, and a Key or Character. With a hardware keyboard you can Record one. Macros are key combinations, never text.

Scale, zoom and displays

• Scale: Fit (the default) shows the whole screen, Fill fills the space, and Actual Size shows every pixel. On an iPhone, and an iPad in a narrow window, Follow Pointer zooms in and keeps the pointer in view. The scale you choose is kept for the host on that kind of device.
• Zoom: pinch. On iPhone and iPad, drag with one finger to move around; in Full Screen Trackpad and Touch, a drag moves the pointer instead, so turn Control off to move around. On a Mac, pinch on a trackpad.
• Displays: when the machine has two or more displays, Displays shows one of them or All Displays. With one shown, the pointer stays on it. This device keeps your choice for each host. Mac Open Each in Its Own Window gives each display a window.
• Resolution changes on the machine change the picture to match.

Quality

Quality, in the ⋯ menu for this screen or in Edit Host for the host:

• Adaptive (the default) suits the connection: it starts sharp on your local network and lighter elsewhere, then follows the link.
• Sharp keeps every pixel exact.
• Balanced and Fast use less data, and can soften photos and video.

Quality applies to VNC servers such as a Raspberry Pi or Linux. It doesn't change a Mac's screen yet, so a Mac's screen has no Quality in its menu.

High Frame Rate, in Settings on devices with a display above 60 Hz, shows a fast-changing screen at up to 120 frames a second (60 for a screen larger than 4K). It's on by default and uses a little more battery or power.

Copy and paste

• With Control on, Send Clipboard in the ⋯ menu puts what you copied on the screen's clipboard, and Get Clipboard brings the screen's clipboard here.
• Paste as Typing types what you copied, key by key, for screens that don't share a clipboard. It refuses text over 4,000 characters, text with control characters other than tab and new line, and emoji sent to a Mac, and says why.
• Share Clipboard, a per-host switch in Edit Host (off by default), makes ⌘V (on iPhone and iPad, on a hardware keyboard) send what you copied before it pastes, and brings what the screen copies to this device. Text from the screen never goes to Universal Clipboard.

A Mac signed in with its account shares text, rich text and images. A Mac signed in with a VNC password may not share its clipboard; use Paste as Typing there. Other screens share text; on some machines, letters outside Western European ones arrive as question marks. Send takes up to 256 KB of text (32 MB to a Mac), and Get up to 32 MB. Where the padlock is open, copied text isn't encrypted either.

Sending a file to the machine

iPadMac Drag a file from the Files app or the Finder onto the screen to send it to that machine. It goes into the account's Desktop folder, or the home folder if there's no Desktop, and never replaces a file already there. You'll see Sending 1 file to the host, and a row in Transfers.

The file goes over Conn's own SSH connection, not the screen, so the host needs a saved SSH sign in on this device. Text, or a picture dragged out of another app's window, has no file behind it: save it as a file first.

When the link drops

If the link drops while a screen is on view, Conn brings it back by itself: you see Reconnecting to the host over the last picture, with Cancel. Nothing you did while the link was down is sent. If you were away from Conn when it dropped, it waits and tries when you come back.

• Conn keeps trying for 20 seconds. If nothing answers, the screen ends with Reconnect and Close.
• A refused sign in, a changed key or a different screen answering stops it straight away, and says which.
• iPhoneiPad Conn doesn't run screens in the background: iOS pauses it soon after you leave. When you come back, it checks each screen with the machine before carrying on. On a Mac, it does the same after sleep.
• iPhoneiPad While a screen is showing, your device stays awake.

Locking a Mac when you finish

When I Disconnect, in Edit Host, Screen, can be Nothing (the default) or Lock. With Lock, choosing Disconnect and Lock, or closing the screen in Sessions, locks the Mac. Leaving the screen doesn't lock it, and neither does a dropped connection. If the lock didn't finish, Conn shows The Mac may not have locked.

On a Mac's screen, a line tells you when the Mac is at its login window, and, for a Mac signed in with its account, when its display is asleep. With Control on, Hot Corner in the ⋯ menu triggers what a corner of that Mac's screen does.

Windows, full screen and devices

• Mac Each screen has its own window, shaped like the remote screen. Closing the window keeps the session in Sessions. On macOS 15 or later, right click the toolbar to choose its buttons.
• Full Screen hides the controls on iPhone and iPad; tap the button at the top edge to bring them back. On a Mac it gives the screen the whole display; press ⌃⌘F while watching or after ⌃⌥⎋ to leave.
• iPad Open in New Window, in the ⋯ menu or on the screen's row in Sessions, moves it into its own window. Show Beside puts another session next to it.
• iPhone Duo Folded halfway like a laptop, the Trackpad style puts the picture on the top half and the pad on the bottom half.
• Handoff opens the same screen, on the same display, on your other devices.

A host's Screen settings

In Edit Host, Screen:

Setting	Choices	What it does
Connection	Automatic, SSH, Direct	How the screen is reached. See How the screen travels.
Port on the machine	Empty, or 1 to 65535	The port the screen listens on, on the machine itself. Empty uses the number shown (5900 unless an address says otherwise).
Start In	Watch, Control	How a screen on this host opens every time.
Share Clipboard	Off, on	Shares the clipboard both ways while you control. Kept by each device.
Scale on This Device	Fit, Fill, Actual Size, and Follow Pointer on iPhone and iPad	How the screen fits. Kept for each kind of device (iPhone, iPad, Mac), and synced with the host.
Quality	Adaptive, Sharp, Balanced, Fast	The picture for VNC servers. Nothing changes for a Mac yet.
When I Disconnect	Nothing, Lock	Locks a Mac when you disconnect.
Macros for this host	Add Macro	Key combinations for this host's screen.

The Screen settings that belong to your device (trackpad, speed, scrolling, haptics, frame rate) are in Settings.

Which screens work

• Sign in: a Mac account through Screen Sharing; RSA-AES (a Raspberry Pi's WayVNC, and TigerVNC with a username); a VNC password; or none.
• Tested: macOS 26.7 and 27.0 Screen Sharing, Raspberry Pi OS's WayVNC 0.10.1, TigerVNC 1.12 and 1.15, x11vnc 0.9.17 and TightVNC 1.3.10.
• Not supported: screens that need VeNCrypt or TLS, a screen that switches to a colour palette, and RDP (Windows Remote Desktop).
• A screen can be up to 16,384 pixels on a side (less on devices with little memory).

More detail is in What Conn supports.

Keyboard shortcuts

Keys	Does	Where
⌥⌘1	Screen, in the Connect menu	Mac, iPad with a keyboard
⌃⌥⎋	Hand the keyboard back to Conn	Mac, iPad
⌃⌘1 to 9	Show one display	Mac, iPad with a keyboard; while watching or after ⌃⌥⎋
⌃⌘0	Show all displays	The same
⌃⌘F	Leave full screen	Mac, the same
⌘R	Reconnect a screen that has ended	Mac, iPad with a keyboard

Every message a screen can show, and what to do, is in Troubleshooting.