LinkToMac 0.8.5

Both apps update this time: Android 0.8.4 → 0.8.5, Mac 0.8.3 → 0.8.5. Install both — the new reply feature needs each side.

Android — the app no longer depends on ADB to work

Self-ADB buys exactly one thing: automatic clipboard capture. Reading the clipboard in the background is gated by Android itself, and the shell daemon behind that gate is what needs ADB, which needs Wireless Debugging, which needs Wi-Fi.

Everything else — the Mac link, remote lock, battery, notification and message mirroring, and Mac→phone clipboard — never needed it. But the app used to hard-gate on it, so a pairing that can't even be attempted (on Mobile Hotspot, Wireless Debugging can never come up) or that adbd silently forgot across a Samsung reboot took the whole app down with it: a full-screen dead end with no way past.

Now ADB is a capability, not a precondition. If it's down, the app works and only automatic capture is off — reported in Settings → Automatic capture, nowhere else.

Sending a copy without ADB

Two new paths, neither needing ADB, Wi-Fi or any permission:

• Text-selection toolbar — select text anywhere and tap Link to Mac, next to Copy and Share. The selection goes straight to the Mac; the clipboard is never involved.
• Notification action — Send clipboard on the ongoing notification. This is the one that also catches copies made by an in-app "Copy link" button, where there's no selection to hang a toolbar off. It briefly takes focus (that focus is the read permission) but no longer opens the app.

Password fields and some custom views won't show the toolbar entry — that's an Android restriction, not a bug.

Also fixed

• Mac→phone clipboard no longer needs the daemon. With the daemon dead, every clip the Mac sent was silently dropped while the log claimed success. It now writes the clipboard directly.
• Logs are readable again — a missing daemon used to log a retry every 3 seconds and bury everything else.

Both — reply to messages from the Mac

The Messages tab can now send a reply, which the phone puts on the real SMS stack. Needs the SEND_SMS permission, requested the first time you try (Settings → Grant SMS Send Access). 1:1 threads only.

Since the app usually isn't the default SMS handler, it often can't write its own sent message into the SMS store — the Mac then keeps its own copy of the reply as the only record.

Install

• Android (linktomac-preview-0.8.5.apk): sideload. This changes native code, so it is not an EAS OTA update — reinstall the APK. The clipboard daemon is unchanged, so no daemon restart is needed.
• Mac (LinkToMac-0.8.5.dmg): Sparkle will offer it, or download directly. Ad-hoc signed and not notarized — first launch on a new Mac needs right-click → Open.