phoneINPUT
Download

Your phone is your computer's keyboard.

Type, dictate or draw on your phone, and phoneINPUT pastes it into the window you are working in on your Windows PC, Mac or Linux desktop: straight over your Wi-Fi, or end-to-end encrypted over the internet.

Download See how it works
  • No phone app to install
  • No account
  • End-to-end encrypted
  • Free for personal use

Everything you type on your phone, where you need it

The phone page opens in your phone's browser. Use its keyboard, voice typing and handwriting exactly as you already do.

Any keyboard, any language

Voice dictation, handwriting, Zhuyin, Pinyin, Cangjie: whatever your phone can type arrives on the computer character for character.

Draw, then paste

Sketch a diagram or sign your name with a finger, and it is pasted as a picture straight into Word, PowerPoint, OneNote or Outlook, or any other app that takes a paste.

From your PC, too

Select text on the computer and press Ctrl+Alt+Shift+C (⌃⌥C on a Mac). It appears in the phone's From PC tab, ready to copy.

AI rewrite, with your model

Polish, make formal, shorten or translate before you send. It uses any OpenAI-compatible service you choose, including a local one such as Ollama.

繁 ⇄ 简 in one tap

Convert between Traditional and Simplified Chinese right on the phone. It works offline, and the text stays on the phone until you send it.

History on the phone

Recent sends stay on the phone to reuse or delete. The computer's dashboard never shows what you typed.

Keeps itself up to date

Updates download in the background, are checked against a published checksum, and install when you are not using the app.

Paired in under a minute

  1. 1

    Install and run

    phoneINPUT lives in the system tray (the menu bar on a Mac). There is no window to keep open.

  2. 2

    Scan the QR code

    Choose Phone Pairing from the tray icon and point your phone's camera at the code. The phone page opens in the browser; add it to the home screen to keep it.

  3. 3

    Type and send

    Tap Send and the text is pasted into the window you are working in on the computer.

Two ways to connect

Your phone reaches the computer over the same Wi-Fi, or through the internet with end-to-end encryptionPhoneInternetComputerSame Wi-Fi

Same Wi-Fi

When the phone and the computer share a network, the phone talks to the computer directly. Nothing leaves your network, and it keeps working when the internet is down.

Turn on Same Wi-Fi in the dashboard. Windows asks for firewall permission once.

Anywhere else

On mobile data or another network, the connection goes through our relay. It is end-to-end encrypted: the relay passes on data it cannot read.

Private by design

What you type may be a password. phoneINPUT is built so that nobody but your computer can read it.

  • Fresh keys for every pairing

    X25519 key exchange and XChaCha20-Poly1305 encryption, negotiated between your phone and your computer each time they pair.

  • The relay sees only ciphertext

    It forwards encrypted messages between two devices and holds no key that could open them.

  • No account, nothing to sign in to

    Pairing is a QR code. There is no email address, password or profile to leak.

  • The dashboard stays on your computer

    Settings are served on 127.0.0.1 only, and stored encrypted on disk.

Download phoneINPUT

Install once; the app keeps itself up to date after that.

phoneINPUT is free for personal use. Commercial use is a free trial for now. It will be open source later.

Linux

64-bit Intel or AMD · an X11 (Xorg) desktop session

Portable (.7z)

Linux on ARM

64-bit ARM, such as a Raspberry Pi 4 or 5 · an X11 (Xorg) desktop session

Portable (.7z)

Windows: the installer sets phoneINPUT up for your user account only and needs no administrator rights. The portable copy is one file: extract the .7z with 7-Zip and run phoneINPUT.exe. If SmartScreen warns about an unrecognized app, choose More info, then Run anyway.

Mac: open the .dmg and drag phoneINPUT to Applications. The .7z holds the same app: extract it with The Unarchiver or Keka. If macOS will not open it the first time, choose Open Anyway in System Settings, Privacy & Security. Allow it under Accessibility when asked, so it can paste.

Linux: extract the .7z (with 7z x, or your file manager) somewhere you can write to, such as ~/.local/bin, and run phoneINPUT. It keeps itself up to date there. It needs WebKitGTK 4.1 and the Ayatana AppIndicator library (on Debian and Ubuntu: libwebkit2gtk-4.1-0 and libayatana-appindicator3-1).

Phone: any current browser, such as Safari on iPhone or Chrome on Android. Nothing to install.

SHA-256 checksums

Questions

Do I need to install an app on my phone?

No. The phone side is a web page. Scan the QR code and it opens in the browser; add it to the home screen and it behaves like an app.

Is it free?

For personal use, yes. Commercial use is a free trial for now.

Is it open source?

Not yet. The source code will be released as open source later.

Can you read what I type?

No. Over the internet, everything between the phone and the computer is end-to-end encrypted, and the relay never has the keys. On the same Wi-Fi it does not pass through us at all.

Where does the text go?

Into whichever window has the keyboard focus on the computer, as if you had pasted it yourself. Your clipboard is put back afterwards.

Why does Windows ask about the firewall?

Only for Same Wi-Fi mode, where the phone connects to the computer directly. After one confirmation phoneINPUT adds a single rule for itself, and uninstalling removes it.

Nothing else on Windows needs a permission: pasting and the From PC shortcut work without administrator rights.

Which permissions does it need on a Mac?

Accessibility, so it can paste for you and read the text you select for the From PC tab. When macOS asks, open System Settings, Privacy & Security, Accessibility, and turn phoneINPUT on. If pasting stops working later, turn it off and on again in that list.

Local Network, for Same Wi-Fi mode. Choose Allow when macOS asks to find devices on your local network. You can change it later under Privacy & Security, Local Network.

If the macOS firewall is on, turning on Same Wi-Fi mode asks once for an administrator password, so the phone is allowed to connect.

Does it work on Linux?

Yes, on 64-bit Linux, Intel, AMD or ARM, with an X11 (Xorg) desktop session: Ubuntu 22.04, Debian 12, Fedora 38 or later, and most other current distributions. The tray icon needs the Ayatana AppIndicator library, and on GNOME the AppIndicator extension. Without a tray, launching phoneINPUT again opens the dashboard.

In a Wayland session the dashboard and the tray work, but pasting is not available yet, and the From PC shortcut works only in apps that run through XWayland. Choose the Xorg session at the login screen.

If firewalld or ufw is running, turning on Same Wi-Fi mode asks once for your password, to open the port.

Does it work with more than one computer?

Yes. Pair the phone with each one. The phone page keeps every pairing and shows a selector to switch between them.