Tether 1.9

💬 Texts send again

• Fixed: texts sent from the Mac never arrived. Tether was sending them without a recipient, so the phone quietly dropped them. Thanks to everyone on Reddit who reported it.
• New Message now opens right in the conversation pane, like Messages: type a name or number, pick a contact with the arrow keys, and write. If you've texted them before, the conversation's history is right there.
• Dual-SIM phones: a SIM menu next to the send button picks which SIM a text goes out on. Replies use the SIM the conversation is already on. Name your SIMs after their carriers from the same menu.

📞 A call card instead of a banner

• Incoming calls show in a card at the top right with the caller's photo and name, and a Silence button that mutes the phone's ringer.
• Answer on the phone and it shrinks to a small pill with a call timer, and goes away when you hang up.
• Prefer the old banner? Turn it off in Settings › General.
• KDE Connect can't answer or decline calls from a computer, so the card doesn't pretend to.

🖼️ Pictures in notifications, by @ronal2s (#2)

• Notifications show the picture your phone sends with them, such as the sender's photo, in the banner and in the Notifications tab.
• With WhatsApp for Mac running, WhatsApp messages no longer alert twice. Clicking a WhatsApp notification opens WhatsApp for Mac.
• Apps without a picture of their own, like Tailscale or Truecaller, show their icon as a tidy symbol instead of a stretched white shape.
• About app icons: banners always show Tether's icon in the corner. macOS doesn't let apps change it, and your phone doesn't send the app's own icon.

Thank you @ronal2s for Tether's first outside contribution!

🔋 The Mac's battery on your phone

• KDE Connect's device list on the phone now shows your MacBook's charge, and whether it's plugged in.

🔧 Fixes

• Calls now end on the Mac when they end on the phone. Before, "Call in progress" stayed, and music paused for a call never came back.
• Video thumbnails from Safari now show on the phone in KDE Connect's media controls. Album art is sent sharper, up to 1024 px.

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⬇️ Install

Homebrew (recommended; no Gatekeeper prompt):

brew install --cask subhashhhhhh/tether/tether

Or download the disk image for your Mac:

• Apple Silicon (M1 and later): Tether-1.9-AppleSilicon.dmg
• Intel: Tether-1.9-Intel.dmg

Not sure which you have? Apple menu → About This Mac → Chip (Apple Silicon) or Processor (Intel). Tether needs macOS 15 Sequoia or later.

Tether is open source and isn't notarized by Apple, so the first time you open a downloaded copy macOS blocks it. Open System Settings → Privacy & Security, scroll to Security and click Open Anyway, or run:

xattr -cr /Applications/Tether.app

Already on Tether 1.5.1 or later? It updates itself from Tether › Check for Updates…

Checksums are in SHA256SUMS-1.9.txt.

Tether 1.8

👤 Names and photos from your contacts

• Messages show who you're texting, with their photo, instead of bare numbers.
• Calls show the caller's name and photo, with a Mute Ringer button.
• Tether keeps a copy of your phone's contacts on the Mac, readable only by you, and only fetches what changed.

💬 Messages

• Conversations now show their whole history, not just the latest message. Load Earlier Messages goes further back.
• Start a new conversation with New Message (⌘N): pick a contact or type a number.

🎵 Control your Mac from your phone

• KDE Connect's Multimedia control on the phone now lists This Mac: see what's playing (Music, Spotify, even a YouTube video in Safari) with artwork, play, pause and skip.
• The Volume tab next to it sets the Mac's volume, and follows changes you make on the Mac.
• Album art from your phone now shows on the Mac too.
• While your phone rings or you're on a call, what's playing on the Mac pauses, and resumes afterwards. Turn it off in Settings › General.

⚡ More from your phone

• Run your Shortcuts: turn on Commands › Show my Shortcuts on the phone to run any shortcut from KDE Connect's Run Command.
• Lock the Mac when your phone leaves: an option in Settings › General. It waits half a minute, so a phone switching networks doesn't lock you out.

✨ Liquid Glass everywhere

• The Notifications, Files, Commands and Messages tabs now use the same glass panels as the Overview. Notifications are grouped by app.

🔧 Fixes

• A phone connected over Wi-Fi no longer disconnects and reconnects every 90 seconds when it's also on Tailscale.
• The phone drive stays mounted through a short disconnect, and unmounting no longer freezes Tether for a few seconds.
• Sending several files survives the phone reconnecting partway.
• A smaller download: 2.6 MB, down from 3.2 MB, now that release builds leave out debugging symbols.

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⬇️ Install

Homebrew (recommended; no Gatekeeper prompt):

brew install --cask subhashhhhhh/tether/tether

Or download the disk image for your Mac:

• Apple Silicon (M1 and later): Tether-1.8-AppleSilicon.dmg
• Intel: Tether-1.8-Intel.dmg

Not sure which you have? Apple menu → About This Mac → Chip (Apple Silicon) or Processor (Intel). Tether needs macOS 15 Sequoia or later.

Tether is open source and isn't notarized by Apple, so the first time you open a downloaded copy macOS blocks it. Open System Settings → Privacy & Security, scroll to Security and click Open Anyway, or run:

xattr -cr /Applications/Tether.app

Already on Tether 1.5.1 or later? It updates itself from Tether › Check for Updates…

Checksums are in SHA256SUMS-1.8.txt.

Tether 1.7

🔔 Ring your Mac from your phone

• Tap Ring for your Mac in KDE Connect on the phone, and the Mac plays a ringtone at full volume, even when it's muted.
• A panel with Stop appears on screen. Ringing again from the phone also stops it, and it stops on its own after a minute.
• Your volume and mute setting come back as they were.

🔑 Copy verification codes

• When a notification from your phone has a sign-in code, the banner shows the code and a Copy Code button.
• The Notifications tab and the Overview have a Copy Code button too.
• Turn on Settings › General › Copy verification codes automatically to have codes copied the moment they arrive.

🤝 Pairing fixes

• Pairing follows desktop KDE Connect's rules more closely, so a phone that pairs from the Mac stays paired.
• A phone that forgot your Mac (after reinstalling KDE Connect, say) can ask to pair again.
• Pairing requests time out after 30 seconds, and stale or replayed requests are ignored.

🔧 Fixes

• Checking for updates works on networks that share one public address, such as universities and offices, where GitHub limits requests.

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⬇️ Install

Homebrew (recommended; no Gatekeeper prompt):

brew install --cask subhashhhhhh/tether/tether

Or download the disk image for your Mac:

• Apple Silicon (M1 and later): Tether-1.7-AppleSilicon.dmg
• Intel: Tether-1.7-Intel.dmg

Not sure which you have? Apple menu → About This Mac → Chip (Apple Silicon) or Processor (Intel). Tether needs macOS 15 Sequoia or later.

Tether is open source and isn't notarized by Apple, so the first time you open a downloaded copy macOS blocks it. Open System Settings → Privacy & Security, scroll to Security and click Open Anyway, or run:

xattr -cr /Applications/Tether.app

Already on Tether 1.5.1 or later? It updates itself from Tether › Check for Updates…

Checksums are in SHA256SUMS-1.7.txt.

Tether 1.6

💾 Your phone as a drive

• While your phone is connected, it appears in Finder as a drive named after it, with an eject button. Browse its storage, open files, and drag files in and out.
• Files are read from the phone as you open them, so a video starts playing right away instead of copying first. Writes are uploaded when the copy finishes.
• It uses KDE Connect's own file sharing, so it works on Wi-Fi and over Tailscale with no setup, no administrator password and no system extension.
• If you use ADB, you can switch a phone to wireless debugging in Settings › Files. Tether falls back to KDE Connect when ADB isn't reachable.
• The Files tab shows whether the drive is mounted, with Eject and Mount buttons. Ejecting in Finder works too; the drive comes back when you mount it again or the phone reconnects.

✨ A cleaner look

• The overview leads with your phone's status: connection, battery and signal, with Find, Clipboard and Send Files as round glass buttons.
• Liquid Glass panels and buttons on macOS 26, and translucent materials on macOS 15.
• The sidebar lists just your devices; Messages, Notifications, Files and Commands are tabs in the toolbar, next to a new Settings button.
• Nearby only appears once an unpaired device is found.
• The menu bar popover is rebuilt as floating glass panels.

🔧 Fixes

• Opening the menu bar popover no longer makes a connected phone disconnect and reconnect.
• The media volume slider now changes the phone's volume while something is playing.
• A phone that leaves Wi-Fi shows as disconnected within about 15 seconds.
• The Lock button only appears for devices that can be locked; KDE Connect for Android can't be.

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⬇️ Install

Homebrew (recommended; no Gatekeeper prompt):

brew install --cask subhashhhhhh/tether/tether

Or download the disk image for your Mac:

• Apple Silicon (M1 and later): Tether-1.6-AppleSilicon.dmg
• Intel: Tether-1.6-Intel.dmg

Not sure which you have? Apple menu → About This Mac → Chip (Apple Silicon) or Processor (Intel). Tether needs macOS 15 Sequoia or later.

Tether is open source and isn't notarized by Apple, so the first time you open a downloaded copy macOS blocks it. Open System Settings → Privacy & Security, scroll to Security and click Open Anyway, or run:

xattr -cr /Applications/Tether.app

Already on Tether 1.5.1 or later? It updates itself from Tether › Check for Updates…

Checksums are in SHA256SUMS-1.6.txt.

Tether 1.5.1

🔄 Tether now updates itself

• Tether checks for a new version once a day and lets you know with a notification. Choose Tether › Check for Updates… to check now, or turn automatic checks off in Settings › About.
• Updates download, verify and install in place, then Tether relaunches. Nothing to drag, and no Gatekeeper prompt.
• Every release is now signed with the same certificate, and Tether only installs an update signed with that certificate. A tampered or substituted download is refused.

🍺 Homebrew

• Install with brew install --cask subhashhhhhh/tether/tether. Homebrew installs skip the "can't be opened" warning.

🔐 Accessibility permission sticks

• Because every release has the same signature, macOS now remembers Tether's Accessibility permission (used for Remote Input and Presentation) across updates. You'll need to grant it once more after installing 1.5.1.

Updating from 1.5 or earlier: those versions can't update themselves, so download 1.5.1 (or install it with Homebrew) this one time. Every release after this installs itself.

---

⬇️ Install

Homebrew (recommended; no Gatekeeper prompt):

brew install --cask subhashhhhhh/tether/tether

Or download the disk image for your Mac:

• Apple Silicon (M1 and later): Tether-1.5.1-AppleSilicon.dmg
• Intel: Tether-1.5.1-Intel.dmg

Not sure which you have? Apple menu → About This Mac → Chip (Apple Silicon) or Processor (Intel). Tether needs macOS 15 Sequoia or later.

Tether is open source and isn't notarized by Apple, so the first time you open a downloaded copy macOS blocks it. Open System Settings → Privacy & Security, scroll to Security and click Open Anyway, or run:

xattr -cr /Applications/Tether.app

Already on Tether 1.5.1 or later? It updates itself from Tether › Check for Updates…

Checksums are in SHA256SUMS-1.5.1.txt.

Tether 1.5

What's New in Tether 1.5

⬇️ Pick your download

• Apple Silicon (M1 and later): Tether-1.5-AppleSilicon.dmg
• Intel: Tether-1.5-Intel.dmg

Not sure which you have? Apple menu → About This Mac → look for Chip (Apple Silicon) or Processor (Intel). Both need macOS 15 Sequoia or newer.

📤 Tether in the Share menu

• Choose Share › Tether in Finder, Photos, Safari and other apps to send files, photos, links and text to your phone.
• With more than one phone connected, Tether asks which one to send to.

🗂️ Sending several files now works

• Fixed: files larger than 128 KB sent from the Mac could arrive cut off, and the phone then threw away the whole batch. This is why sending 4 images delivered only one, or none. Every file now arrives complete, checked with a 12 MB transfer.
• Several files are now sent as one batch, the way KDE Connect expects, so the phone tracks them as a single transfer.

🌍 Tailscale works when Tether is opened from Finder

• Fixed: opened from Finder or at login, Tether couldn't read your tailnet, so it never found your phone over Tailscale. It only worked when started from Terminal.

ℹ️ About

• New About tab in Settings, and Tether › About Tether now shows who made it and where the source code lives.

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📦 Installation & Gatekeeper Note

Tether is an open-source indie app and isn't notarized with a paid Apple Developer account, so macOS may say the app "cannot be opened because the developer cannot be verified".

1. Drag Tether.app to /Applications and open it.
2. If macOS blocks it, open System Settings → Privacy & Security, scroll to Security and click Open Anyway.
3. Or, in Terminal:

   xattr -cr /Applications/Tether.app

Checksums are in SHA256SUMS-1.5.txt.

Tether 1.4

What's New in Tether 1.4

⬇️ Pick your download

• Apple Silicon (M1 and later): Tether-1.4-AppleSilicon.dmg
• Intel: Tether-1.4-Intel.dmg

Not sure which you have? Apple menu → About This Mac → look for Chip (Apple Silicon) or Processor (Intel). Both need macOS 15 Sequoia or newer.

🌍 Tailscale: use Tether from anywhere

If Tailscale is running on your Mac and your phone, Tether now finds your phone on your tailnet automatically, so notifications, messages, files and the clipboard keep working when you're not on the same Wi-Fi.

• Only Android and iOS devices signed in to your own Tailscale account are contacted. Devices shared with you by other people are never contacted.
• Tether reads your tailnet from the local tailscale app on your Mac and never talks to Tailscale's servers.
• Turn it on or off, and see what it found, in Settings › General › Tailscale.
• Connect by Address… now accepts Tailscale names such as phone.tailnet.ts.net, as well as IP addresses.

📥 Files from your phone now arrive

• Fixed: files shared from the phone were downloaded and then silently discarded, so the phone said "sent" while the Mac showed 0%. They now land in Downloads, with progress in Files and a "File Received" notification. Album art and SMS attachments had the same problem and now work too.

🔌 Steadier connections

• Your phone no longer reconnects every 45 seconds. Each reconnect used to re-sync all of your SMS conversations.
• A phone that connects without being discovered first, or one whose KDE Connect was reinstalled, now appears under Nearby so you can pair it.
• Removing a pairing is now always logged with the reason, and saved pairings that can't be read are backed up instead of overwritten.

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📦 Installation & Gatekeeper Note

Tether is an open-source indie app and isn't notarized with a paid Apple Developer account, so macOS may say the app "cannot be opened because the developer cannot be verified".

1. Drag Tether.app to /Applications and open it.
2. If macOS blocks it, open System Settings → Privacy & Security, scroll to Security and click Open Anyway.
3. Or, in Terminal:

   xattr -cr /Applications/Tether.app

Checksums are in SHA256SUMS-1.4.txt.

Tether 1.3.1

Tether 1.3.1

Now runs on macOS 15 Sequoia and newer, on both Apple Silicon and Intel Macs. Tether 1.3 required macOS 27 on Apple Silicon. 1.3.1 is otherwise identical to 1.3; its changes are listed below.

What's New in Tether 1.3

🔒 Security

• Certificate pinning. A paired device must present the same certificate it paired with, on every connection and every file transfer. Before 1.3, any device on the network that claimed a paired phone's ID was trusted.
• Removed a device that came pre-trusted in earlier builds. It is also removed from existing installs on launch.
• Safer file receiving. File names sent by the phone can no longer place files outside ~/Downloads (or outside the SMS attachments folder).
• Private identity. The Mac's certificate now uses a random per-install passphrase, is readable only by your account, and is loaded in memory instead of the login keychain. A damaged identity is regenerated instead of crashing the app.

📶 Connections & file transfers

• Much faster connections. Signing with the keychain-stored key took about 10 seconds the first time after launch, which could make the first connection or file transfer time out. TLS handshakes now take milliseconds.
• Large files stream straight to disk with live progress instead of being held in memory.
• More reliable connections. Writes that fail no longer leave a half-sent packet in the connection, and the app advertises the port it is actually listening on.

✨ Redesigned interface

• A native Mac layout: devices in the sidebar, with a connected phone's Messages, Notifications, Files and Commands listed under it.
• Overview with battery, network, now playing (with album art) and recent files.
• Find Phone, Lock, Send Clipboard and Send Files in the toolbar and the new Device menu, with keyboard shortcuts.
• The Notifications list now works, with reply and dismiss. Media controls now work with the phone.
• New Reduce motion option in Settings › General.

⚠️ Before you upgrade

• You may need to pair your phone again. Devices paired before 1.3 without a saved certificate, and the pre-trusted device mentioned above, are no longer trusted.
• Requires macOS 15 (Sequoia) or newer. Universal app for Apple Silicon and Intel.

---

📦 Installation & Gatekeeper Note

Tether is an open-source indie app and isn't notarized with a paid Apple Developer account, so macOS may say the app "cannot be opened because the developer cannot be verified".

1. Drag Tether.app to /Applications and open it.
2. If macOS blocks it, open System Settings → Privacy & Security, scroll to Security and click Open Anyway.
3. Or, in Terminal:

   xattr -cr /Applications/Tether.app

SHA-256 faebd2d54b6cff70fbc79fd045c92ff71af55a07beab50a9c37c3d48e175d31d

Tether 1.3

Using macOS 15 Sequoia, or an Intel Mac? Get Tether 1.3.1 instead: same release, built for macOS 15+ on Apple Silicon and Intel.

What's New in Tether 1.3

🔒 Security

• Certificate pinning. A paired device must present the same certificate it paired with, on every connection and every file transfer. Before 1.3, any device on the network that claimed a paired phone's ID was trusted.
• Removed a device that came pre-trusted in earlier builds. It is also removed from existing installs on launch.
• Safer file receiving. File names sent by the phone can no longer place files outside ~/Downloads (or outside the SMS attachments folder).
• Private identity. The Mac's certificate now uses a random per-install passphrase, is readable only by your account, and is loaded in memory instead of the login keychain. A damaged identity is regenerated instead of crashing the app.

📶 Connections & file transfers

• Much faster connections. Signing with the keychain-stored key took about 10 seconds the first time after launch, which could make the first connection or file transfer time out. TLS handshakes now take milliseconds.
• Large files stream straight to disk with live progress instead of being held in memory.
• More reliable connections. Writes that fail no longer leave a half-sent packet in the connection, and the app advertises the port it is actually listening on.

✨ Redesigned interface

• A native Mac layout: devices in the sidebar, with a connected phone's Messages, Notifications, Files and Commands listed under it.
• Overview with battery, network, now playing (with album art) and recent files.
• Find Phone, Lock, Send Clipboard and Send Files in the toolbar and the new Device menu, with keyboard shortcuts.
• The Notifications list now works, with reply and dismiss. Media controls now work with the phone.
• New Reduce motion option in Settings › General.

⚠️ Before you upgrade

• You may need to pair your phone again. Devices paired before 1.3 without a saved certificate, and the pre-trusted device mentioned above, are no longer trusted.
• Requires macOS 27 on Apple Silicon.

---

📦 Installation & Gatekeeper Note

Tether is an open-source indie app and isn't notarized with a paid Apple Developer account, so macOS may say the app "cannot be opened because the developer cannot be verified".

1. Drag Tether.app to /Applications and open it.
2. If macOS blocks it, open System Settings → Privacy & Security, scroll to Security and click Open Anyway.
3. Or, in Terminal:

   xattr -cr /Applications/Tether.app

SHA-256 e91369c2e3935d6afa17fbdde7cb2c2ec6fc2766afcb0ab5334e66041ccc8d86

Tether 1.2

What's New in Tether 1.2

🌐 Rock-Solid Discovery Across All Wi-Fi Routers

Many common home and fiber ONT routers (Syrotech, Realtek, TP-Link, Netgear, etc.) quietly drop or filter UDP subnet broadcasts (192.168.1.255:1716) at the hardware switch level even when AP isolation is disabled. Tether 1.2 introduces multi-tier discovery that works regardless of router broadcast filtering:

• Darwin Kernel ARP Inspection: Reads local ARP routing neighbors directly via Darwin kernel sysctl without spawning child processes.
• Instant Subnet Sweep: Conducts an ultra-lightweight, non-blocking UDP sweep across your local /24 network in ~6ms on launch and on-demand refresh.
• Peer IP Cache: Automatically persists and directly contacts recently connected peers on reconnect.

🎯 "Add by IP" Direct Connection

If you are on an enterprise network, public Wi-Fi, or a router with extreme multicast filtering, you can now click the new "Add by IP" button (network icon in the toolbar) to connect directly to your phone or tablet's local IP address.

🔔 In-Window Pairing Prompt & Fingerprint Verification

• Added a prominent Glassmorphic pairing request banner inside the main application window.
• Displays device name, SHA-256 verification key fingerprint, and Accept / Reject action buttons right within the detail view so you never miss a pairing request if macOS notifications are silenced.

🛠️ Stability & Connection Fixes

• Fixed an edge case where incoming TCP connection renegotiation during initial discovery could prematurely clear pending pairing state.
• Improved sidebar device selection fallback to prioritize available devices awaiting pairing.

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⚡️ Resource Footprint

• DMG Size: ~2.5 MB (vs 90 MB official KDE Connect DMG)
• Installed Size: 5.0 MB (vs 370 MB official client)
• Idle Overhead: 0.0% CPU and ~15 MB RAM

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📦 Installation & Gatekeeper Note

Since Tether is an open-source indie app and not notarized through a paid Apple Developer account ($99/year), macOS Gatekeeper may present a dialog stating that the app "cannot be opened because the developer cannot be verified".

To launch Tether:

1. Standard macOS Method:
   • Drag Tether.app to /Applications.
   • Open Tether. If blocked, open System Settings → Privacy & Security.
   • Scroll down to the Security section and click Open Anyway.
2. Terminal Command:

   xattr -cr /Applications/Tether.app