Pallm

Getting started

From download to your first chat from your phone, in about ten minutes.

Pallm has two halves. Your Mac is the host: it runs the models, keeps your chats and does the work. Your iPhone (or iPad, or another Mac) is how you reach it, from home or from anywhere else.

What you need

  • A Mac with Apple silicon running macOS 15 or later. More memory means bigger, smarter models: 16 GB works, and 32 GB or more is where it gets good.
  • Something that serves models on that Mac. If you don’t have one yet, install LM Studio and download a model in it. Choosing a model helps you pick one.
  • An iPhone or iPad running iOS 18 or later, for Pallm on the go.

1. Install Pallm on your Mac

  1. Download Pallm for Mac and open the disk image.

  2. Drag Pallm into Applications, then open it from there.

    Open it from Applications, not from the disk image or your Downloads folder. Pallm sets itself up to start at login, and macOS remembers where it was opened from.

2. Make your Mac the host

The first time Pallm opens, it asks what this Mac is for. Choose Set Up This Mac as the Host.

Pallm starts its background service, pallmd, and adds an icon to the menu bar. From now on the service starts when you log in and keeps running after you close the Pallm window, so your phone can reach it at any time.

The menu bar icon is where you start, stop and restart the service, pair devices and read its log.

3. Give it a model

Pallm looks for model servers on your Mac and adds the ones it finds by itself:

ServerWhere Pallm looks
LM Studioport 1234
Ollamaport 11434
oMLXits own settings, key included
llama.cpp (llama-server)port 8080
mlx-serveport 11234

Start your server (in LM Studio, open the Developer tab and switch the server on) and Pallm picks it up within 30 seconds. Its models appear in the model picker of every chat.

A server on another machine, or on a different port, is added in Settings › Advanced › Model servers › Add server…. See Model servers.

4. Pair your iPhone

  1. Install Pallm on your iPhone.
  2. Open it. The pairing screen asks you to scan a code from your Mac.
  3. On the Mac, Pallm shows the code right after you set it up as the host. Later, choose Pair another device… from the menu bar icon to get a new one.
  4. Scan the code with the iPhone. It joins in a moment.

That’s it. The iPhone can now reach your Mac from anywhere, on Wi-Fi or cellular, with no port forwarding, VPN profile or account. Pair your devices covers iPads, other Macs and removing a device.

5. Your first chat

Tap New Chat, type something and send it. The reply streams in from the model on your Mac.

Then try the thing Pallm was built for: send a longer question, lock your phone and put it away. The Mac keeps writing. When the reply is done you get a notification, and the whole reply is waiting when you open the chat.

Where to next