Support
1. Turn on Screen Sharing on your Mac
Pane talks to the Screen Sharing service built into macOS, so there is nothing to install on the Mac.
- Open System Settings › General › Sharing.
- Turn on Screen Sharing. (If Remote Management is already on, Screen Sharing is included in it; Pane works with both.)
- Click the ⓘ next to Screen Sharing and choose who may connect: All users or Only these users.
- Optional: under Computer Settings, enable VNC viewers may control screen with password only if you want to sign in with a separate VNC password instead of your Mac account. Pane detects which one the Mac asks for.
- Note the Mac’s name shown under General › About (for example
Studio). On your local network it is reachable asstudio.local.
In Pane, tap Connect to a Mac at the bottom of the home screen (on iPad: New connection in the top bar). Macs with Screen Sharing on appear under Macs on this network within a few seconds; tap one, or type the .local name or IP address into Address. Port 5900 and your Mac account are assumed; Advanced holds Port, Quality (Auto · Sharp · Fast) and Displays (All · Main). Tap Connect, then sign in with your Mac user name and Password (the same ones you use at the login screen). Leave Save to Keychain on and Face ID unlocks it next time.
Let the Mac wake up
So that Pane can wake a sleeping Mac, enable Wake for network access in System Settings › Battery › Options (laptops) or Energy (desktops), and keep the Mac on Ethernet or the same Wi-Fi network. Then, in Pane, open the Mac’s details, tap Edit and enter its hardware address under Wake-on-LAN (on the Mac: System Settings › Network › Wi-Fi or Ethernet › Details › Hardware). An asleep Mac then shows a Wake button on the home screen, and the connecting screen offers Wake & retry. Waking works on the local network only.
2. Connect from anywhere
The simplest way is Pane Relay, a small app for the Mac: install it, scan its code with the iPhone camera, done. It is paid after a 14-day trial. If you already use Tailscale, Pane works with it for free:
Tailscale gives each of your devices a private, stable address that works from any network, with no port forwarding.
- Install Tailscale on the Mac (tailscale.com/download) and on your iPhone or iPad (App Store), and sign in to the same account on both.
- In the Tailscale admin console, make sure MagicDNS is on. Your Mac is then reachable by its machine name, for example
studioorstudio.tail1234.ts.net, or by its100.x.y.zaddress. - In Pane, open the Mac’s details, tap Edit and enter that name or address under Away from home. When the Mac does not answer on its home address, the connecting screen offers Try remote address. (You can also add a new Mac with the Tailscale address directly; the port stays
5900.) - Make sure the Tailscale app is connected on your iPhone or iPad before you connect. Tailscale on the Mac must be running too; set it to start at login.
Tailscale encrypts the whole connection end to end, so this is also the recommended way to use Pane on public Wi-Fi.
3. Common errors
| What you see | What it usually means |
|---|---|
| Can’t reach · didn’t answer on port 5900. It may be asleep, or you’re on a different network. | Screen Sharing is off, the Mac is asleep, on a different network, the name does not resolve, or the Mac’s firewall blocks it. Check System Settings › General › Sharing and System Settings › Network › Firewall, make sure both devices are on the same Wi-Fi, or use Wake & retry, Try remote address or Edit address. |
| Sign in needed · That didn’t work. Check the user name and password. | Use your Mac user name (short name or full name) and login password. If the Mac asks for a VNC password instead, Pane shows a single VNC password field and no user name. |
| The connection timed out before the screen arrived. | The network is very slow or something in between drops the connection. Try again closer to the router, or over Tailscale check that it is a direct connection (tailscale status on the Mac). |
| The server closed the connection. / Host closed in the session banner | The Mac went to sleep, Screen Sharing was turned off, or another user took over the screen. Tap Reconnect. |
| Sign-in not supported · only offers a sign-in Pane can’t do yet (RSA-AES) | Recent macOS versions can offer Screen Sharing only with Apple’s RSA-AES sign-in, which Pane does not implement yet. Open System Settings › General › Sharing, tap the ⓘ next to Screen Sharing, turn on VNC viewers may control screen with password, set a password, and sign in to Pane with that password. RSA-AES support is planned. |
| The server spoke a VNC dialect Pane doesn’t understand yet. | Usually a non-Mac VNC server with an unsupported security type. Email us the server software and version. |
| Macs on this network stays empty | Pane needs the Local Network permission to discover Macs; see Troubleshooting. Then tap Scan again. |
| Black screen or only the login window | The Mac is locked or another user is logged in. Sign in on the remote login window; macOS may ask whether to share the current display or open a virtual display. |
| Wake does nothing | No hardware address under Wake-on-LAN, Wake for network access is off, the Mac is on a different network, or it is fully shut down (wake only works from sleep). |
| Keyboard shortcuts go to the iPad | ⌘ ⌥ ⌃ ⇧ and esc live in the dock at the bottom of the session: tap a modifier once to hold it for the next key, twice (or long-press) to keep it held. The fn key in the dock opens a second row with the arrow keys, tab, forward delete, home, end, page up, page down and F1–F12. With a hardware keyboard attached, the keyboard button at the right of the dock switches whether keys go to the Mac or stay on this device. A few shortcuts (⌘H, ⌘Tab, ⌘Space) are reserved by iPadOS; send them from the dock instead. |
| Choppy or slow | Move closer to the Wi-Fi router, prefer 5 GHz, or set Quality to Fast: under Settings for this Mac in the Mac’s details, in Advanced when adding it, or in the session panel on iPad. Over Tailscale, a direct connection is much faster than a relayed one. |
| Clipboard does not sync | Turn on Shared clipboard under Settings for this Mac (or in the iPad session panel), and allow the paste prompt; see Troubleshooting. |
4. Gestures in a session
The dock’s trackpad button switches between Trackpad (the screen is a trackpad for the Mac’s pointer, the default) and Touch (your finger is the pointer). The controls fade after a few seconds; bring them back without clicking anything with a three-finger tap, or by tapping the black area around the Mac’s screen.
| Gesture | Trackpad | Touch |
|---|---|---|
| One finger | moves the pointer | drags (mouse button held) |
| Tap | click at the pointer | click where you tap |
| Two-finger tap | right click | right click |
| Long press | press-and-hold drag | right click |
| Two fingers | scroll; moves the picture while zoomed in | moves the picture |
| Three fingers | moves the picture | moves the picture |
| Pinch | zoom; keep the fingers down and move them to pan at the same time | |
| Two-finger double tap | zoom back to fit | |
| Three-finger tap | shows the controls, nothing is sent to the Mac | |
5. Troubleshooting
“Pane would like to paste from…”
With Shared clipboard on (the default), Pane mirrors what you copy on the iPhone or iPad to the Mac, and iOS asks before any app reads text you copied in another app. Tap Allow Paste. To stop the prompt for good, open Settings › Apps › Pane › Paste from Other Apps and choose Allow (on iOS 17 and earlier: Settings › Pane). The same prompt appears when you tap the paste button on the New connection screen. If you would rather not share the clipboard, turn it off under Settings for this Mac.
Local Network permission
The first time Pane scans for Macs or connects on your Wi-Fi, iOS asks to allow Local Network access (“Pane looks for computers with Screen Sharing on your network and connects to them.”). If you tapped Don’t Allow, Macs on this network stays empty and .local names and local IP addresses fail with Can’t reach. Turn it on in Settings › Apps › Pane › Local Network (or Settings › Privacy & Security › Local Network), then tap Scan again. Connections over Tailscale do not use the local network and are not affected.
Is the connection encrypted?
Pane talks VNC directly to your Mac. Your login is encrypted; the screen, keystrokes and clipboard are not, so use it on your own Wi-Fi or over Tailscale or a VPN when away. Section 2 above explains how to set Tailscale up; it encrypts the whole connection end to end.
Can I turn off analytics?
Yes. You can turn usage analytics off in the app under About (Home › sliders button). Events already sent are not affected; nothing is sent after the switch is off. What is collected is listed in the privacy policy.
6. Still stuck?
Email jan.jiran@understudios.org with your iPhone or iPad model, iOS version, macOS version and the exact error text. We read everything and usually answer within a few days.