PocketTUI

Your terminal, in your pocket.

Your computer's terminal, on your phone. Check on jobs, keep Claude or Codex going, or kick off something new while you're away from your laptop.

Free and open source. No account, no cloud.

$ curl -fsSL https://pockettui.com/install.sh | bash
Open the app Try the demo
A tmux session in the terminal on a computer, running ls, git status and tmux ls.
The same session on a phone in PocketTUI, with the touch key bar along the bottom.
Runs onYour machine
AccountsNone
TrackingNone
AccessPairing code

Full terminal

Anything you can do in your terminal.

Run Claude or Codex, check on jobs, inspect logs, browse files, SSH — anything already on your computer. Full-screen TUIs render as they should — vim, htop, tmux panes — because it is a real terminal. PocketTUI gives you the whole terminal, not remote control of one specific app.

Grouped attach

Pick up your phone without interrupting your laptop.

Your phone gets its own view of the tmux session, sized for its screen. Your laptop keeps its own window, cursor and scrollback — opening PocketTUI does not detach or resize the session you are already using.

The sessions list on a phone, showing four tmux sessions with their running command, window count and age.

Touch keys

The keys a terminal needs, built for thumbs.

Esc, Tab, Ctrl, Shift and arrow keys stay within reach above the phone keyboard. Open the cluster when you need arrows, and close it to give the rows back to the terminal.

A phone with the keyboard open, the key bar above it showing Esc, Tab, Ctrl, Shift and a four-way arrow cluster, and the terminal above that.

Media

The results it just saved, one tap away.

When your terminal prints a path to an image or video, PocketTUI makes it tappable. Open the result full-screen, pinch to zoom, then jump straight back into the terminal. No scp, no separate file-transfer step.

A rendered result figure open full-screen in the phone viewer, over the terminal line that printed its path.
A video open in the same viewer, paused with its play button and scrubber showing.

Setup

Three steps, once.

Step one

On your computer

Run the installer on the machine where your tmux sessions already live.

$ curl -fsSL https://pockettui.com/install.sh | bash
Step two

On your phone

Open pockettui.com/app and add it to your home screen.

  • iPhoneShare → Add to Home Screen
  • AndroidMenu → Add to Home screen
Step three

Connect

Enter your machine's address and the pairing code the installer printed. PocketTUI remembers both; tap any session to attach, and tap any image or video path to view it.

Questions

Is it secure?

PocketTUI requires a pairing code for every connection, including the session list and terminal. Failed guesses are rate-limited.

Does my terminal go through your servers?

No. The site and app are static; once loaded, your phone connects directly to your machine over WebSocket. Your sessions, keystrokes and output never pass through PocketTUI servers.

Do I need Tailscale?

No. On the same network, your machine's local IP is enough. For access from elsewhere, you can use Tailscale, WireGuard, your employer's VPN, or a reverse proxy. Tailscale is just an easy way to make your machine reachable remotely without exposing the PocketTUI port directly to the internet.

What does the installer touch?

It installs into ~/pockettui with its own Python environment — no sudo. You can choose another directory, and uninstall with one command.

Is there an App Store or Play Store app?

No, and it doesn't need one — add the web app to your home screen and it runs full-screen like a native app, on iPhone, Android and iPad.

What do I need?

Linux or macOS, tmux, and Python 3.9 or newer. On your phone, any modern browser.

Put your terminal in your pocket.

One command on the computer you already work on. Then open the app on your phone.

$ curl -fsSL https://pockettui.com/install.sh | bash
Open the app Try the demo