Mac Live shows the state of your Mac live on your Android phone or iPhone (temperatures, processor, memory, disks, battery, Time Machine backups…) and warns you when something goes wrong. It works with the Mac Live app installed on your Mac, which you link to your phone by scanning a QR code.
In short: no account, no ads, no analytics. Your Mac's readings reach your phone end-to-end encrypted: neither the publisher nor the services that carry them can read them. The encryption keys never leave your Mac and your phone.
Mac Live is published by Atria.Eponym, an independent developer based in France. Contact: atria.eponym@gmail.com
While the app is open on your phone, your Mac sends it, about every two seconds while it is on screen and every 30 seconds while it stays open in the background:
When the app is closed, your Mac sends no readings. It keeps in its memory, for 24 hours, one point per minute of three readings — processor usage, processor temperature and power draw — and sends this history, end-to-end encrypted like everything else, to your phone when you open the app; it is erased when the Mac restarts and is never written to disk. Your Mac also keeps watching a few thresholds and sends an alert when one is crossed (high temperature, disk nearly full, switch to battery, low battery, no Time Machine backup for 30 days): its kind, the measured value, the threshold and the time.
The QR code shown by your Mac holds a random identifier and a secret key. Your Mac keeps them in its Keychain. On Android, your phone keeps them in storage protected by the Android Keystore, excluded from phone backups. On iPhone, they are kept in the iOS Keychain, readable after the first unlock and on this device only: they do not go into iCloud Keychain and cannot be restored to another device; only the app's own notification extension can also read them, to decrypt alerts. The secret key is never sent to anyone: the relay only receives a proof derived from it, which cannot decrypt your readings.
You can cut the link at any time: « Forget this Mac » on the phone, or « Disconnect all phones » on the Mac, which creates a new key.
The history on screen (up to the last 24 hours) stays in memory and disappears when the app closes. Uninstalling the app erases everything else.
The publisher owns no server. Four third-party services are involved on Android, two on iPhone, and here is exactly what each one sees.
1. The relay, at Cloudflare. Your Mac and your phone do not connect to each other directly: they go through a small relay run by the publisher on Cloudflare's infrastructure. The relay passes on encrypted messages it cannot read and keeps no readings. For each Mac it only keeps: the random identifier, a fingerprint (SHA-256) of the access proof, at most 8 notification tokens (Google or Apple) with the date they were registered, and the times the Mac connected and disconnected. Everything is erased automatically once the Mac has not connected for 90 days. Like any online service, Cloudflare processes connection technical data (IP addresses) under its own privacy policy. The relay's error logs may contain the first 8 characters of a notification token, never a reading.
2. Notifications, through Firebase Cloud Messaging (Google) on Android. To warn you while the app is closed, the relay goes through Google's notification service, which receives your phone's token and the Mac's random identifier. An alert travels there encrypted: Google cannot read it; your phone decrypts and displays it. The two messages « Mac unreachable » and « back online » only hold the random identifier and a time, unencrypted. This service is covered by Google's privacy policy.
On iPhone, through the Apple Push Notification service (Apple). The same relay goes through Apple's notification service, which receives your iPhone's token and the Mac's random identifier. The relay keeps this token exactly like Google's: at most 8 per Mac, erased after the Mac has not connected for 90 days. An alert travels there end-to-end encrypted: a small extension of the app decrypts it on your iPhone and writes its text, so Apple sees no data from your Mac, only the neutral text « Mac Live alert » shown if decryption fails. The « Mac unreachable » and « back online » messages, here too, only hold the random identifier and a time. This service is covered by Apple's privacy policy.
3. Google's QR code scanner, on Android. The QR code is scanned by your phone's Google Play services, which handle the camera themselves. The app only receives the text of the scanned code and does not ask for camera access. This service is covered by Google's privacy policy. On iPhone, no third-party service is involved: the app reads the QR code itself with the camera, on the phone, and neither saves nor sends any image.
4. Supporting development, on Android, if you choose to. A donation goes through Google Play billing. Payment is handled entirely by Google: the app never sees your payment details and sends no data on that occasion. This is optional and unlocks nothing in the app. The iPhone version offers no donation.
On Android:
You can withdraw these permissions at any time in Android settings.
On iPhone:
You can withdraw them at any time in Settings › Mac Live on the iPhone.
The General Data Protection Regulation gives you rights of access, rectification, erasure and objection. The publisher holds no data that can identify you: the relay only knows random identifiers. To erase everything: « Forget this Mac » removes your phone's token from the relay, and uninstalling both apps lets the relay erase the rest after 90 days. You can also write to atria.eponym@gmail.com.
This app is not specifically aimed at children and does not knowingly collect any data about them.
This policy may change if the app changes. The date of the last update is shown at the top of this page. Any substantial change will be mentioned in the release notes.