MeowDisplay collects no data. There are no accounts, no analytics, - no telemetry, no crash reporting, no ads, and no servers — ours or anyone else's. - Your screen content travels directly from your Mac to your device over your USB - cable or your local network, and nowhere else. Because the source code is public, - every claim on this page is verifiable.
-What MeowDisplay does with your screen
-MeowDisplay turns an iPhone or iPad into an extra display for your Mac. To do - that, the Mac app captures the contents of a virtual display, encodes it as video, - and sends it over a single direct connection to the MeowDisplay - app on your device:
--
-
- Over USB, the video travels through your cable via the
-
usbmuxdservice built into macOS. It never touches any network.
- - Over WiFi, the video travels across your own local network - directly between the two devices, discovered via Bonjour. -
In both cases the connection is peer-to-peer: no relay, no cloud, no third - party. Nothing is recorded or stored — frames are decoded, displayed, and - discarded. Touch and scroll input travels the same direct path in the other - direction.
- -What the apps store on your devices
-Only local settings, only on your own hardware, never transmitted anywhere - except as described:
-| Data | Where | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| Preferences (quality, connection choice, display name) | -Mac / device, locally | -Remembering your setup between launches |
| A random install identifier (UUID) | -Device, locally | -Lets your own Mac recognize that the same device is reachable over both - USB and WiFi. It is generated on the device, has no relation to your - identity or hardware identifiers, and is only ever sent to Macs you - connect to. |
| Diagnostic log files | -Mac (/tmp) / device (app container), locally |
- Debugging. Never uploaded — they leave your device only if you choose - to share them. |
Permissions, and why they're needed
-| Permission | Why MeowDisplay asks |
|---|---|
| Screen Recording (Mac) | -To capture the virtual display it streams to your device. macOS shows - the purple capture indicator whenever this is active — by design, you - always know. |
| Accessibility (Mac) | -To turn taps and scrolls from your device into mouse events on the - Mac. |
| Local Network (Mac and device) | -For WiFi discovery and streaming on your own network. Not needed in - USB mode. |
Every permission is used solely for the function above, on your own machines.
- -How the connection is protected
-Everything MeowDisplay sends between your Mac and your device — the - video, audio and your input — travels over an encrypted - connection (TLS 1.3), whether over WiFi or a USB cable. If - that encrypted connection can't be set up, MeowDisplay doesn't fall back to - an unencrypted one; it doesn't connect.
-The first time you connect two devices, both show a short code. You - confirm the codes match, and from then on each device only accepts the - other one it was paired with. Forgetting a device removes that pairing.
-What this does not cover: encryption protects the connection, not the
- devices at either end. Anyone who can use your unlocked Mac or device can
- see what's on its screen, and on a shared network others can still see that
- two devices are talking, just not what they're sending. The technical
- details are in the SECURITY.md file in the
- source code.
This website
-This site is a static page hosted on GitHub Pages. It sets no cookies and - runs no analytics or tracking scripts. GitHub may log standard web-server - request data as part of operating the hosting; see the - GitHub - Privacy Statement.
- -Verifiability
-MeowDisplay is open source under the - GPL-3.0 license, - the same license as the upstream OpenDisplay project it's built on. - The complete source code of both apps — including everything this page - describes — is public at - github.com/raiseCatError/MeowDisplay. - You don't have to take our word for any of this; you can read the code, build - the apps yourself, or watch the network with the tools of your choice.
- -Changes and contact
-If the app's behavior ever changes in a way that affects this page, the page - will be updated in the same repository — its - edit - history is public. Questions or concerns are welcome on the - issue tracker.
- -
-