At first this feature to control your iPhone from a Mac left me scratching my head. After all, my phone is rarely out of reach. But that wasn’t the point, and now I use iPhone Mirroring every day.
iPhone Mirroring Is One of the Best Hidden Features in iOS 18 and MacOS Sequoia
The iPhone Mirroring app presents a live view of the iPhone screen.
Launching the app triggers the connection; enter your Mac login password or use Touch ID to start mirroring. The first time you connect, you’ll need to enter your device passcode and approve the connection on the iPhone.
If you’re in a trusted environment, you can bypass the security prompt by going to iPhone Mirroring > Settings and choosing Automatically authenticate.
Now you can navigate your iPhone remotely
There’s some irony in using a mouse pointer to control the famously touch-driven iPhone, but otherwise you’re still pointing and clicking (or tapping, if you’re using a trackpad) to control the interface.
Being able to enter text on the iPhone this way is a revelation if you type faster on a physical keyboard than with your thumbs. But there’s more to it: the iPhone Mirroring app uses three keyboard shortcuts (or items in the View menu) for navigating quickly:
- Cmd-1: Home screen
- Cmd-2: App Switcher (same as swiping up to view recent apps)
- Cmd-3: Spotlight Search
Check apps on your iPhone even when it’s not nearby.
Some limitations do apply. Anything that uses the accelerometer — step tracking, for instance, or apps that use it as a controller, like racing games — won’t work because it requires physical motion of the phone. Also, the orientation will rotate if you launch an app that must be in horizontal layout, but there’s no control to switch between portrait and landscape while connected to the iPhone.
The camera doesn’t activate, so you can’t use it as a security camera to keep an eye on your pets in the next room or take FaceTime Video calls. FaceTime Audio calls can come through as part of Apple’s Continuity framework, which passes calls from the iPhone to the Mac if you have the Calls on Other Devices enabled in Settings > Apps > Phone.
You can reposition and resize the iPhone Mirroring window
To move the window elsewhere on the screen, drag the top of the frame. Or, use the Move & Resize options in the Window menu to position it in sections such as the right edge or top left corner. To resize the iPhone window, go to the View menu and choose Larger (Cmd-+) or Smaller (Cmd-–); or choose Actual Size (Cmd-0) to go back to the default.
When an iPhone notification appears on the Mac, click it to view the item in the iPhone Mirroring app.
Drag and drop files
This feature may prove to be the most useful part of iPhone Mirroring. You can copy files from the iPhone to the Mac or vice versa by dragging them from one window to the other. No need to wait for Photos to sync images via iCloud or use an intermediary such as Dropbox or iCloud Drive.
On the iPhone, make sure there’s a target open that will accept the file you want to drag — iPhone Mirroring doesn’t treat the entire iPhone like an external hard drive. For example, open the Messages app and drag an image to one of your conversations to add it as an outgoing text. Or open the Files app and drag any kind of document onto a destination such as iCloud Drive. Before you release the file, you can navigate the Files hierarchy by pausing over folders and even pause over the Back button to navigate to the previous folder. The file copies only when you release it.
Specify which iPhone should be used for mirroring in System Settings.
Once you’re finished, here’s how to end iPhone Mirroring
There’s no off switch in the iPhone Mirroring app to disconnect the phone, other than quitting the app. If you want to interrupt the connection, the best way is to unlock the iPhone (assuming it’s nearby where you can physically access it).
The app indicates the iPhone is in use. Lock the phone and click the Try Again button to resume mirroring.
