Why Screen Ferry is different
Screen Ferry creates the remote display at the viewer's resolution and captures it 1:1. Text stays sharp because there is no scaler in the path—not because a sharpening filter tries to reconstruct it afterward.
See how Virtual Display worksInstallation requires no administrator rights, places no drivers in /Library, and adds no always-on background service.
Both Macs dial outward, and the transport opens no listening port. No port forwarding, VPN, or inbound firewall rule. Turn on P2P mode for a direct route where the networks permit it, with the relay ready everywhere else.
Explore relay and P2P routingBuilt for interaction
Every part of the experience is designed around what makes remote work feel immediate.
ScreenCaptureKit feeds a real-time VideoToolbox H.264 pipeline capped at 60 fps. Stale work is discarded instead of becoming hidden delay, then Metal presents the current frame directly.
Cursor position and shape travel separately from desktop frames. The Client draws and predicts motion locally, then reconciles with the Host's authoritative macOS cursor state.
AAC-ELD frames, bounded queues, adaptive jitter handling, burst-loss redundancy, and a lock-free Core Audio render path deliver less than 30 ms interactive audio latency.
Relay reachability. Direct-path speed.
Host and Client both dial outward. No port forwarding, router changes, or VPN required.
One session across changing networks
Screen Ferry separates your logical session from the route carrying it. Network viability changes trigger new candidate gathering while the current route remains usable. A validated standby can take over without rebuilding the desktop session.
Control data resumes on the new route, congestion state is reseeded, and media continues from what is current—not from a backlog.
A native Mac pipeline
No browser media stack sits between your Macs. Screen Ferry uses native capture, codec, graphics, audio, input, display, networking, and cryptography APIs directly.
Encrypted above every carrier
Host and Client perform a mutually authenticated X25519 key exchange bound to the relay session ID. Application datagrams are sealed with ChaCha20-Poly1305, authenticated sequence numbers, replay defense, and direction-specific key ratcheting.
Application traffic keys stay at the endpoints. The relay forwards opaque encrypted datagrams without decoding Screen Ferry media or control messages.
Made for the Macs you rely on
The Host creates a Virtual Display when you connect. It mirrors the connected monitor when present, works independently on a headless Mac, and is disposed when you disconnect.
Use the Client beside your local work or take the remote Mac full screen. Viewport-aware display behavior keeps the desktop sharp and legible.
Move text, rich text, PNG, and TIFF between Macs, and inspect capture, encode, transport, decode, render, audio, and route quality when you want the details.
Common questions
Yes. Screen Ferry Host runs on the remote Mac, and the native Screen Ferry Client runs on the Mac in front of you.
No. Host creates a Virtual Display for every connection, serves it as an independent desktop when the Mac is headless, and disposes it when you disconnect.
No. Host and Client both dial outward. The relay makes the session reachable without an inbound listener, router changes, or a VPN.
Turn it on to let Screen Ferry authenticate, measure, and qualify a direct route between your Macs. The established relay remains ready as fallback.
No. Host and Client encrypt application datagrams end to end above both relay and P2P carriers. The relay forwards opaque traffic without decoding video, audio, input, cursor, clipboard, or control messages.
The logical session lives above its carrier. Screen Ferry can gather and validate a new route, resume control traffic, and continue with current media instead of rebuilding the desktop session.
Two native Mac apps. One responsive session.
Install Host on the Mac you want to reach and Client on the Mac in front of you.
