Pallm

Pair your devices

Add an iPhone, iPad or another Mac, and remove one you no longer use.

Every device that talks to your Mac is paired once, with a one-time code. After that it connects on its own, from anywhere.

Pair an iPhone or iPad

  1. On the device, open Pallm. With nothing paired yet, it shows the pairing screen.
  2. On the host Mac, choose Pair another device… from the Pallm menu bar icon. Any device that’s already paired can make a code too: Settings › Pair another device….
  3. Scan the QR code with the new device, or copy the link and open it there.

Pallm asks you to confirm before it joins. Only pair with a Mac of your own: it keeps your chats and sees everything you send.

If the Mac has more than one profile, the device then asks who’s using it.

Pair another Mac

A laptop you take with you can use your host’s models, chats and tools from anywhere, the way your phone does. A MacBook Air gets the large models a Mac Studio at home runs, and does none of the work.

  1. Download Pallm on the laptop and open it. It’s the same app as on the host.
  2. On the first screen, don’t choose Set Up This Mac as the Host. You’ll use Or connect to another host below it.
  3. On the host, choose Pair another device… from the menu bar icon and copy the link. With both Macs signed in to the same Apple Account, Universal Clipboard carries it across. AirDrop or a message to yourself works too.
  4. Paste the link into Pairing link on the laptop and confirm.

A Mac connected this way is a Client: it has no service of its own, no models and no menu bar icon. It shows the same chats as your other devices, and a reply started on your phone streams on the laptop from wherever it’s got to. You can switch a Mac between Client and Host in Settings › This Mac.

To use the host’s models in coding agents and other tools on the laptop, see Use your models in other apps.

Remove a device

Settings › Devices lists everything paired with the host. Remove one there and it’s cut off at once: its key no longer opens the connection, its open streams end, and any pairing codes it made stop working.

From a Terminal on the host, pallm devices lists them too.

If a code doesn’t work

Each code works once and expires after a while. Make a new one from the menu bar icon. If the device says it can’t reach your Mac, see Troubleshooting.