Finally, you can go touch some grass.With Lostty

Lostty is a fast, feature-rich terminal emulator for the agentic era, supporting multi-agent orchestration and remote-control, designed to be synced with our iOS app.

Install builds, view artifacts and simulators, & access your skills and MCPs, all in one UI on the phone.
Tap into caffeinate & auto-hotspot features designed to keep your MacBook running even when closed.
Supports Claude Code & Codex CLI.

Download for Mac GitHub

Fun: Unlock skins by spending tokens.

Swap intuitively between devices.

skins — claude ✳Editing SessionList.swiftWaiting on youRunning testsReady

~/code/lostty/skins ❯ claude

✻ Welcome to Claude Code

> sort the phone list so waiting sessions come first

⏺ I'll change the sort in SessionList.swift and add a test.

⏺ Update(Sources/SessionList.swift)

⎿ Updated with 12 additions and 3 removals

Bash command

swift test --filter SessionListTests

Run the session list tests

Do you want to proceed?

❯ 1. Yes 2. Yes, and don't ask again for swift test 3. No, and tell Claude what to do differently (esc)

⏺ Bash(swift test --filter SessionListTests)

⎿ Executed 14 tests, with 0 failures

⏺ Done. Waiting sessions now sort first, then Working, Ready and Idle.

✳ Working… (1m 12s · esc to interrupt)

> ▍

9:41

Lostty

Connected 4

Waiting on You 0 Working 2 Ready 1 Idle 1

Rate-limit the uploads

> api-server/main

Codex · Editing limiter.ts

✽ Incubating… (3m 52s)

›

Sort waiting first

> lostty/skins

Editing SessionList.swift

✳ Working… (1m 12s)

›

Publish the docs

> docs-site

Ready.

›

dotfiles

> dotfiles/main

Idle. 2h ago

›

1Working…Claude edits your code
2Waiting for responseClaude stops to ask you
3You tap AllowRight from your phone
4Running tests…Claude picks back up
5ReadyPhone back in your pocket

Quick setup

Download

Download for Mac iOS App: testflight

Pair devices

Lostty: Success

From CLI

Terminal on your Mac

$ git clone https://github.com/Lawliang/lostty.git
$ cd lostty
$ macos/setup.sh

Plug in your iPhone, tap Trust, then run macos/install-phone.sh in the same folder.
Install Tailscale on the Mac and the iPhone, signed in to the same account.
Open Lostty → Phone Access…, click Pair a Phone… and scan the code with the iPhone app.

Full setup guide View Docs

System Requirements

Mac macOS 14 or later
iPhone iOS 17 or later

Download Lostty for Mac

A notarized disk image. Open it and drag Lostty to Applications. Needs macOS 14 or later.

stablerecommended

Lostty

The everyday release. It checks for updates once a day and asks before installing one.

Download Lostty.dmg

macOS 14 or later. Notarized by Apple.

betanewest features

Lostty Beta

Features before they reach stable, like the clickable mascot and Branches. Expect rough edges.

Download Lostty-Beta.dmg

It replaces stable rather than installing next to it: same app, settings and terminals, shown as Lostty Beta. To go back, download stable.

Install

Open the downloaded .dmg.
Drag Lostty to Applications.
Open Lostty from Applications.

On your iPhone

Lostty for iPhone is coming soon on TestFlight. Once it's out, install it from the TestFlight link and pair it with your Mac. Getting Started walks through it.

Other ways

See every release on GitHub, with notes for each version, or build Lostty from source.

Thanks for being here.

Lostty is a small, independent project — maintained by one developer
It's free, open source and MIT licensed

Endorse Lostty

Thank you, truly.

Not affiliated with anyone

Lostty isn't affiliated with, sponsored by or funded by any company. There are no ads, no paid tiers and no investors.

That also means it makes no money on its own. It's a passion project, kept going by one person.

If you'd like to chip in

If Lostty has given you a few more walks outside and you'd like to support it, I'd really appreciate it. It helps keep the lights on, like the Apple Developer membership the iPhone app needs for TestFlight.

No pressure at all. Using it, telling a friend, or filing a good bug report helps too.

LOSTTY(1)Lostty ManualLOSTTY(1)

Getting started

Install Lostty on your Mac, put the app on your iPhone, and pair them. It takes four steps.

Requirements

A Mac on macOS 14 or later.
An iPhone on iOS 17 or later.
Tailscale on both.

On your Mac

1. Install Lostty

Download Lostty.dmg, open it, drag Lostty to Applications, and open it from there.

On your iPhone

2. Install the app

Lostty for iPhone is coming soon on TestFlight. Once it's out, install TestFlight from the App Store, open the Lostty link on your phone and tap Install.

note

Until then, developers can install it from source with Xcode. See Build from source.

Pair them

3. Install Tailscale on both

Install Tailscale on the Mac and the iPhone, and sign in to both with the same account.

why tailscale?

Your phone talks to your Mac directly, over SSH, inside your own private Tailscale network. There's no Lostty server in the middle. There isn't one. And the phone's SSH key never leaves the phone.

4. Pair

On the Mac, open Lostty → Phone Access… and fix any row without a ✓. Each row says what to click. Then click Pair a Phone…, and on the iPhone open Lostty, tap Pair with Mac and scan the code. Click Allow on the Mac.

If you'd rather set up the Mac by hand, the steps Phone Access automates are in Manual Mac setup.

Updating

Lostty checks for updates once a day and asks before installing one. TestFlight keeps the iPhone app up to date.

That's it

Go take a walk. Your phone reaches the Mac while it's awake and Lostty is open. To keep it reachable with the lid closed, see Phone Access.

Phone Access

Open your Mac's Lostty sessions from your iPhone, anywhere, over your own Tailscale. Nothing goes through a Lostty server; there isn't one.

Set up once

Install Tailscale on your Mac and your iPhone, and sign in to both with the same account.
On the Mac, open Lostty → Phone Access…. Fix any row that isn't ✓:
- tmux: brew install tmux.
- Remote Login and Password logins off: one admin password prompt turns on Remote Login and allows only key logins.
- Terminal definition: click Install.
- Folder access (optional): click Grant Now and allow Desktop, Documents and Downloads, so commands from your phone never wait on a macOS prompt.
Click Pair a Phone…. On the iPhone, open Lostty, tap Pair with Mac, and scan the code. Click Allow on the Mac.

Stay Awake

Your phone can reach the Mac only while the Mac is awake and Lostty is open. To keep it awake with the lid closed, install the Stay-awake permission in Phone Access, then choose Stay Awake for Phone from Lostty's menu bar icon.

While it's on, Low Power Mode is on whenever the lid is closed, and it turns itself off at your battery floor (15% by default) or if the Mac gets too hot.

Using it

A Claude Code session shows its task, with Waiting when it's waiting for you or Working while it works. Waiting sessions come first.
Other sessions show their project. A session in .claude/worktrees/<name> shows as <repo>/<name>.
Swipe left on a row → Rename to name a session. It's the same name as Rename Tab… on the Mac.

Lost phone

Open Lostty → Phone Access on the Mac and click Remove next to it. If you can't get to Lostty, delete the line ending in lostty-phone:<id> from ~/.ssh/authorized_keys.

Troubleshooting

"Couldn't find your Mac nearby" while pairing: Keep the code open on the Mac, keep the phone close, and allow Local Network access for Lostty on both.
"Can't reach your Mac": Check Tailscale is on on both, signed into the same account, and the Mac is awake.
"This Mac's identity changed": If you reinstalled macOS, pair again. Otherwise don't connect; something else is answering at that address.
The Mac never sleeps: After a force-quit while Stay Awake was on: open Lostty once (it puts things back), or run sudo pmset -a disablesleep 0.

Skins

Lostty gives every pane a background color and texture based on the project it is in.

cd into a project and the pane re-skins; leave and it reverts.
Split panes are skinned independently.
Git repos you have not configured get a stable automatic skin.
Override any pane from the Skins icon in the sidebar or the skins command.

Presets

Twelve built-in skins restyle your background, text color, texture, 16-color ANSI palette, cursor and selection. Each has a rarity label and an accent color.

Skin	Rarity	Look
`neon-arcade`	legendary	Bright magenta and cyan on a dark purple.
`sunset-drive`	epic	Warm orange and pink on a dark plum with scanlines.
`mint-protocol`	rare	Neon green and yellow on a dark teal.
`deep-dive`	rare	Bright cyan and purple on a dark blue.
`lava-rush`	epic	Warm orange and yellow on a dark brown with diagonal texture.
`bubble-pop`	common	Hot pink and yellow on a purple with sparkle texture.
`thunderhead`	epic (Zeus)	Thunder gold on storm navy with lightning.
`undertow`	rare (Poseidon)	Sea-foam on abyssal teal with tide lines.
`bloodrite`	heroic (Ares)	Battle red on dried blood with blade marks.
`heartsease`	common (Aphrodite)	Rose pink on dusk rose with petals.
`silverbow`	legendary (Artemis)	Hunter green on night forest with a starfield.
`stormsurge`	duo (Zeus & Poseidon)	Gold lightning over teal swells.

Commands

skins                    # interactive picker
skins set neon-arcade
skins color '#3a0f14'
skins texture grid
skins opacity 0.5
skins list               # name, background, texture, rarity
skins current
skins reset

Overrides last until reset or until the pane closes. zsh and bash get the skins function from Lostty's shell integration; other shells can run lostty +skins.

Configure

Copy docs/skins/skins.example.toml to ~/.config/lostty/skins/skins.toml. A [[match]] entry maps a folder to a skin. Errors never break the terminal: the last good config stays active and the Skins icon in the sidebar shows a yellow dot.

Claude trace

While Claude Code is working in a pane, a light ray races around that pane's edge. The moment Claude finishes, the ray disappears. Each preset has its own trace; panes without a skin get a pink-and-cyan beam.

Manual Mac setup

These are the steps Phone Access automates, for setting up by hand.

note

Most people should use Lostty → Phone Access instead. See Phone Access.

Steps

tmux: brew install tmux.
Remote Login: System Settings → General → Sharing → Remote Login on, "Allow access for" → only your user.
Keys only: create /etc/ssh/sshd_config.d/000-lostty.conf containing:
sshd_config
```
PasswordAuthentication no
KbdInteractiveAuthentication no
```
then toggle Remote Login off and on. Check with ssh -o PreferredAuthentications=password localhost; it must refuse.
The phone's key: in the phone app, Settings → Show This Phone's Key → share it to the Mac, and append it to ~/.ssh/authorized_keys as restrict,pty <key> lostty-phone:<any-id>. Then chmod 600 ~/.ssh/authorized_keys.

Terminal definition, so tmux draws Lostty's terminal correctly:

mkdir -p ~/.terminfo/78 ~/.terminfo/67
cp /Applications/Lostty.app/Contents/Resources/terminfo/78/xterm-ghostty ~/.terminfo/78/
cp /Applications/Lostty.app/Contents/Resources/terminfo/67/ghostty ~/.terminfo/67/

Tailscale on the Mac and the iPhone, signed in to the same tailnet, starting at login, with two-factor on the account. In the phone app use the Mac's Tailscale name (your-mac.tailXXXX.ts.net) or 100.x address.
Awake in a bag (optional): sudo pmset -a disablesleep 1, and sudo pmset -a disablesleep 0 to undo. Set the Mac's Wi-Fi to join the iPhone's hotspot automatically. Expect heat under heavy builds and battery drain.

Build from source

For developers: build the Mac app yourself and install the iPhone app over the cable, before it's on TestFlight or to run your own changes.

# the short version
git clone https://github.com/Lawliang/lostty.git && cd lostty
macos/setup.sh           # build and install the Mac app
macos/install-phone.sh   # install the iPhone app over the cable

Requirements

A Mac on macOS 15 or later, with Xcode 26 and Homebrew.
An iPhone on iOS 17 or later, with its cable.
A free Apple Account, to sign the iPhone app.

The Mac app

Get Xcode 26 from the App Store and open it once. Then, in Terminal:

git clone https://github.com/Lawliang/lostty.git
cd lostty
macos/setup.sh

It installs what the build needs (it may ask for your password), then builds Lostty, puts it in /Applications and opens it. The first build takes a while.

The iPhone app

Add your Apple Account to Xcode: Settings → Accounts, click +, and sign in. Plug your iPhone into the Mac, unlock it, and tap Trust. Then, in the lostty folder:

macos/install-phone.sh

The first time, the phone may ask you to:

turn on Settings → Privacy & Security → Developer Mode (the phone restarts);
trust your Apple Account in Settings → General → VPN & Device Management.

Then run the command again.

note

With a free Apple Account, the app stops opening after 7 days. Run the command again to renew it. A paid developer account makes it last a year.

Then pair them as in Getting Started.

Updating

git pull
macos/install.sh

Then choose Restart to Update in Lostty's menu bar.

warning

Don't Quit Lostty to update: quitting ends every terminal session.

Contributing

Bug reports, ideas and changes are all welcome.

Report a bug

Open an issue at github.com/Lawliang/lostty/issues. Say what you did, what you expected and what happened, plus your macOS version (and iOS version for the phone app). If a bug also happens in plain Ghostty (rendering, fonts, escape sequences, input), it belongs upstream at ghostty-org/ghostty.

Send a change

Fork the repo and make a branch.
Keep the change focused: one fix or feature per pull request.
Run the tests that cover what you touched.
Open a pull request saying what changed and why. Screenshots help for UI.

Prerequisites

macOS with Xcode 26, plus the Metal Toolchain: xcodebuild -downloadComponent MetalToolchain
Zig 0.15.2 and Nushell: brew install [email protected] nushell
tmux, for the phone features: brew install tmux

Build

zig build -Demit-macos-app=false   # the engine, whenever code outside macos/ changes
macos/build.nu                     # Debug build of the Mac app
macos/install.sh                   # release copy into /Applications

Test

What	Command
Zig (engine and CLI)	`zig build test -Dtest-filter=<name>`
Mac app	`macos/build.nu --action test`
One Mac test suite	`macos/skins-test.sh <SuiteName>`
Phone's shared package	`cd macos/LosttyRemote && swift test`

Format

Zig: zig fmt .
Swift: swiftlint lint --strict --fix
Everything else: prettier -w .

LosttyOctober 2026LOSTTY(1)

Finally, you can go touch some grass.With Lostty_

Fun: Unlock skins by spending tokens.

Swap intuitively between devices.

Rate-limit the uploads

Sort waiting first

Publish the docs

dotfiles

1Download

2Pair devices

3Lostty: Success

System Requirements

Lostty

Lostty Beta

Install

On your iPhone

Other ways

Thanks for being here.

Not affiliated with anyone

If you'd like to chip in

Getting started

Requirements

On your Mac

1. Install Lostty

On your iPhone

2. Install the app

Pair them

3. Install Tailscale on both

4. Pair

Updating

That's it

Phone Access

Set up once

Stay Awake

Using it

Lost phone

Troubleshooting

Skins

Presets

Commands

Configure

Claude trace

Manual Mac setup

Steps

Build from source

Requirements

The Mac app

The iPhone app

Updating

Contributing

Report a bug

Send a change

Prerequisites

Build

Test

Format

Finally, you can go touch some grass.With Lostty

Download

Pair devices

Lostty: Success