TermAway

Your Mac terminal, on your iPad.

TermAway is a self-hosted terminal for iPhone, iPad and the browser. A menu bar app on your Mac runs a small Node server; a native SwiftTerm client connects over your Wi-Fi or through Tailscale. No cloud, no account, no tracking — your terminal never leaves your network.

Download on the App Store · Download for Mac · termaway.app

Features

• Nothing in the middle. Your Mac talks to your iPad directly, over your own network or your own tailnet.
• Named sessions that stay put. Create "backend", "frontend", "agent" and reattach from any device. Turn on tmux persistence and they survive a server restart or a reboot.
• Built for agents. A session that rings the terminal bell — or posts to the local notify hook — raises a notification, and tapping it opens that session.
• Real terminal. Your $SHELL with your dotfiles, 24-bit colour, and everything interactive: vim, htop, less, Claude Code, Codex.
• Made for touch. A prompt composer with per-session drafts, an accessory bar with Tab, arrows, Esc and Ctrl chords, split panes on iPad, and tappable links to dev servers you start in a session.
• Several screens at once. iPhone, iPad and a browser can watch the same session live.

Quick start

bun install
node server/index.js

Then open http://localhost:3000, or point the iOS app at your machine — it finds the server on your network by itself.

node-pty ships native bindings, so the server needs the Node runtime. Bun is only used to install.

Most people never run this by hand: the macOS app bundles the server and runs it from the menu bar.

Apps

iOS / iPadOS	Native SwiftTerm client — apps/ios/
macOS	Menu bar app that hosts the server — apps/macos/
Web	Browser client, xterm.js — apps/web/
Linux	Server only, via the release tarball — server/

Configuration

Variable	Default	Description
PORT	3000	HTTP server port. Also --port.
HOST	0.0.0.0	Bind address.
TERMAWAY_PASSWORD	—	Require this password before a client can do anything. Also --password.
SERVICE_NAME	TermAway (<computer name>)	How the server advertises itself over Bonjour.
TERMAWAY_TMUX	off	Set to 1 to run sessions inside tmux so they survive a server restart.
TERMAWAY_TMUX_BIN	—	Path to tmux, if it isn't in a standard location.
TERMAWAY_DEBUG	off	Set to 1 for per-message logging.

Security

• Local by default. The server binds to your network and never phones home. There is no TermAway-hosted cloud or relay.
• Password auth. Set TERMAWAY_PASSWORD (or --password). Attempts are rate-limited and compared in constant time.
• TLS. Run node server/generate-certs.js to create a self-signed pair in ~/.termaway/certs; the server then serves HTTPS and WSS.
• Reaching it from outside. Use Tailscale or another VPN, and set a password. Don't port-forward TermAway to the open internet.

Architecture

├── apps/
│   ├── ios/                  # Native iOS/iPadOS client (SwiftUI + SwiftTerm)
│   ├── macos/                # Menu bar server app (AppKit)
│   └── web/                  # Web terminal client (xterm.js)
├── server/
│   ├── index.js              # Express + WebSocket server
│   └── sessionManager.js     # PTY session lifecycle
├── website/                  # Marketing website (termaway.app)
└── builds/                   # Release artifacts (.dmg, .tar.gz)

A session is a node-pty process running your login shell. The server keeps a scrollback buffer per session and fans output out to every attached client, so several devices can watch the same terminal. With TERMAWAY_TMUX=1 the PTY runs a tmux client instead, and the shell belongs to the tmux server — which is what lets sessions outlive the TermAway process.

WebSocket protocol

Client → server:

Message	Purpose
auth	Authenticate, when a password is set
create / attach / detach / kill / rename	Session lifecycle
input / resize	Terminal I/O
list	Ask for the session list
clipboard-set / clipboard-get	Clipboard sync

Server → client:

Message	Purpose
output	Terminal data
sessions	Session list, broadcast on any change
created / attached / killed / renamed / exited	Lifecycle confirmations
auth-required / auth-success / auth-failed	Authentication
attention	A session wants the user (bell or notify hook)
client-connected / client-disconnected	Someone else attached
clipboard-update / clipboard-content	Clipboard sync
error	Something went wrong

Development

node --watch server/index.js   # server with auto-reload
npm test                       # server self-checks

Building the apps and cutting a release is documented in CLAUDE.md.

Tech stack

• Server — Node.js, Express, ws, node-pty
• Web client — vanilla JS, xterm.js
• iOS client — Swift, SwiftUI, SwiftTerm
• macOS app — Swift, AppKit
• Website — Astro

Troubleshooting

Colours look wrong. Your shell should see TERM=xterm-256color; check that your .zshrc/.bashrc doesn't override it.

A session disappeared after restarting the server. That's the default — sessions are tied to the server process. Turn on tmux persistence to keep them.

The iOS app can't find the server. Discovery uses Bonjour, which needs both devices on the same network. Over Tailscale, type the tailnet address by hand.

The web terminal renders oddly. It uses WebGL; try another browser or reload.

License

MIT