Support

Padoo is made by one person. Email lands in a real inbox, and a person reads it, usually within a couple of days.

Get in touch

Bugs, questions, feature requests, or anything that behaved strangely. If it's a connection problem, say which Mac and iPhone you have and which network path the Mac app reports.

Email Padoo support

What you need

iPhone on iOS 18 or later Mac on macOS 15 or later The free Padoo Mac app 3 days free, then one purchase Both on the same network, or a cable

Padoo is two halves. The iPhone app on its own has nothing to talk to. The free Mac companion app is what actually moves your cursor. It is a menu bar app: no Dock icon, no window.

Setting it up

  1. Download and open the Padoo Mac app. It appears in your menu bar.
  2. Grant it Accessibility permission when it asks. Without it, macOS silently refuses to let any app move the cursor, and Padoo would connect and simply appear dead.
  3. Open Padoo on your iPhone. Your Mac appears in the list.
  4. Tap it. The Mac shows a QR code; scan it with the phone. There is a typeable fallback code too.
  5. That's it. Your Mac appears in the list from then on - one tap and you're back on, no code needed again.

Common questions

My iPhone doesn't see my Mac.

Almost always one of three things: the Mac app isn't running (check the menu bar), the two devices are on different Wi-Fi networks or different bands of a mesh, or the iPhone's Local Network permission for Padoo is off. Check Settings → Padoo. Plugging the phone in with a cable also works and skips the network entirely.

It connects, but nothing moves.

That is the Accessibility permission. Open System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility and switch Padoo on. If it is already on, switch it off and on again. macOS occasionally keeps a stale entry after an app update.

The cursor stutters.

Open Diagnostics in the Mac app's settings. It reads your Wi-Fi channel and says in plain language what it found: usually radio contention on a crowded channel, or Low Power Mode on the iPhone quietly halving how fast it can send. Pinning the connection to a cable rules the network out entirely.

The pairing code stopped working.

The pairing window expires after two minutes, on purpose. Ask the Mac for a new code and scan again.

Can I pair more than one device?

Yes. A Mac remembers as many devices as you like, but only one may be connected at a time. Any remembered device can be revoked from the Mac, which cuts off a live session immediately.

What are the buttons that appear at the top of the trackpad?

That's the context strip. Your Mac watches which app is frontmost and sends the phone a small row of keys for it: Back and Forward in a browser, Continue and the three Step buttons in Xcode, VS Code and the JetBrains IDEs, Previous and Next in Keynote, mute and camera in Zoom, Archive in Mail. The list is a deliberate allow-list - an app that isn't on it gets no strip rather than a wrong one. If a strip does nothing in an app you expected, that app has no entry yet; email me and I'll add it.

What is the grid of keys, and where do the icons come from?

That's the deck: fifteen glass keys with real app icons. It's your layout, set up on the Mac - not a blind mirror of your Dock. Press a key to bring that app forward; hold one for App Exposé. The sliders down each side are your Mac's real brightness and volume - and if either can't be both read and set, the phone draws no slider rather than a dead one. An amber dot under a key means that app is running.

Can I launch an app without leaving the trackpad?

Yes. Pull up (or tap) the handle in the lower left and the deck slides in as a drawer. Launch one app and it leaves, putting you back on exactly the surface you came from.

How do I switch between the trackpad, the pointer and the deck?

Press the circle in the top bar and drag: three choices bloom around your thumb, the one you're heading toward lights up, and letting go picks it. It reads direction rather than aim, so overshooting costs nothing, and releasing back in the middle means never mind. A plain tap unfolds the same three as labelled buttons if you'd rather read them.

The gestures don't feel right for my hands.

Open the Gestures tab in the Mac app. How far a tap may travel before it stops being a tap, how long the tap-then-drag window stays open, how much travel commits a three-finger swipe: all of it is tunable. The defaults are an average, and nobody's hands are the average.

What happens if the link dies while I'm dragging?

The Mac releases every held button and modifier within about a second and a half. A synthetic button-press whose sender vanished would otherwise leave the Mac dragging forever, so every exit path releases first.

What does Padoo cost?

The iPhone app gives you three days free, then asks for a single purchase - one payment, yours for good, no subscription. Finding your Mac and pairing with it stay free forever; the trial meters the surfaces, not the setup. The Mac app is free and always will be. There is no account and no sign-in either way, and the purchase is handled entirely by the App Store - Padoo never sees a payment detail.

How do I remove it?

Delete the iPhone app as usual, and drag the Mac app to the Trash. To clear the pairing first, revoke the device from the Mac app's Connection settings. Nothing of yours is stored anywhere else. See the privacy policy.