Enable Remote Control for Claude Code sessions in Claude Desktop App

+1 — I prefer the Desktop interface but need remote control to monitor long-running tasks from my phone when I step away. Would love to see this brought to Desktop so I don't have to switch to the CLI just for remote access.

Please when? We need remote control on the desktop app!

Would be amazing! With always-on please.

Having the ability to check in on long running tasks when I step away from my desk, would make me a lot more productive — but always forget to start the session in the terminal.

same, is there a timeline on this?

I'm surprised april and still not done! I'm tired of using claude code windows app with remote desktop (RDP) on my phone

Diagnostic Evidence: Desktop → Mobile Bridge Is One-Directional

Adding concrete diagnostic data that confirms and clarifies this issue.

Environment: Claude Desktop (Mac, CLAUDE_CODE_ENTRYPOINT=claude-desktop), "Enable Remote Control for all sessions" set to true via /config, Claude iOS app, and claude.ai/code in Safari on iPhone.

What I found

1. bridge-state.json (~/Library/Application Support/Claude/bridge-state.json) contains only one entry — and it's for a session I initiated from my iPhone, not from Desktop. Desktop-initiated sessions are never registered with the Remote Control API.

1. CLI sessions auto-register correctly. When I open claude in a terminal (not Desktop), a new session immediately appears on my iPhone as "remote-control-linear-mist" under Idle. The "enable for all sessions" setting works perfectly for CLI.

1. /remote-control command doesn't exist inside Desktop. Typing it returns "Unknown skill." There is no way to manually activate Remote Control from within a Desktop session.

1. Session lists are completely disjoint:

• Desktop "Today" shows 3 sessions (2 Desktop-initiated + 1 iPhone-initiated)
• claude.ai/code on iPhone shows only the 1 iPhone-initiated session
• Claude iOS app shows only iPhone-initiated sessions under "Idle"

Summary

The bridge is one-directional: iPhone/web → Desktop works. Desktop → iPhone/web does not. The Desktop app simply never registers its sessions with the Remote Control API, despite the setting being enabled. This makes the "Enable Remote Control for all sessions" setting misleading — it only applies to CLI sessions.

Impact

This forces users who prefer the Desktop app to choose between the Desktop UI and mobile session visibility. The whole point of Remote Control is to monitor and interact with active sessions on the go — but the app most users run (Desktop) doesn't support it.

Repro: Open Claude Desktop → start a session → check claude.ai/code on phone → session is not listed. Open claude in terminal → session immediately appears on phone.

need this urgently!

+1. I use Claude Desktop as my primary interface for Claude Code sessions. Not being able to monitor long-running tasks from my phone is a real gap — I end up having to stay at my desk just to check if something finished.

Would love to see Desktop sessions register with the Remote Control API the same way CLI sessions do.

+1

Hi everyone,

I noticed that in the latest version of the Claude Desktop App, the /remote control option is now visible in the Claude Code tab — which wasn’t the case before.

However, when trying to activate it, I consistently get an error: “Error initializing” and the feature does not start.

Has anyone else encountered this issue or found a workaround?
Would be great to know if this is a known bug or related to a specific setup.

Thanks!

Thanks for noticing it @stevek77 , it does work OOTB in my case.

Same here, works perfectly @NickvZyl

+1. My specific ask:

The CLI supports two ways to enable Remote Control:

1. Manually, per session — typing /remote-control in each window
2. Automatically, for all sessions — via /config → "Enable Remote

Control for all sessions = true", which makes every new session
mobile-reachable with zero commands

The Desktop App only supports option 1. I can type /remote-control
to enable it manually in each window, but there's no equivalent of
option 2 — no auto-enable for all sessions.

Why this matters

I typically keep multiple Desktop App windows open (one per project/task).
To make them mobile-reachable, I have to type /remote-control in
every single window, every single time. If I have 6 sessions open,
that's 6 manual slash commands I need to remember before stepping
away from my desk.

If I forget even one window, that session is invisible from my phone
until I come back to the desk and type it — which defeats the purpose
of remote access.

What I'd love to see (priority order)

1. A GUI toggle in Desktop App Settings equivalent to the CLI's

"Enable Remote Control for all sessions", OR

1. The Desktop App honoring the CLI's existing /config flag, so the

preference is shared across both frontends

Use case

Picking up coding sessions from my phone while away from the desk
(bed, couch, etc.) — without having to remember to type
/remote-control in every Desktop App window before I leave.

Thanks!

I'm in the same boat; I do all my coding in the MacOS desktop app via the "Code" mode, but I would love to step away from my Mac Mini and monitor/move along coding sessions from my iPhone.

I see /remote-control as a slash command in my current version (Claude 1.4758.0 (fb266c) 2026-04-24T20:22:30.000Z) but it errors with "Remote Control failed to connect: /login"

Please add this to desktop app! Just getting /login error or /remote-control isn't available in this environment.

Same! Please add this, seems like all pieces are already in place.

+1 please

Hey everyone, I found a pretty simple solution!

Here's what worked:

Install VS code
Install Claude Code extension
Login to claude
Ran the /remote-control command in VS code and it provided me a hyperlink to the session!

Moved back to Claude desktop into an old session
/remote-control command
And boom another hyperlink to that current session. Fixed!

This is what claude said after troubleshooting

"That's a clean fix. Makes sense in hindsight: starting Remote Control from the VS Code extension session ran the bridge handshake against a non-cowork backend, which seeded the env/session pair on Anthropic's side correctly. Once that account-level state existed, the desktop app's /remote-control had something valid to attach to. The cowork-sandboxed desktop session couldn't bootstrap it from scratch, but it can join an already-good bridge."

+1 from a non-developer Desktop user. Driving a multi-session build with my agent and the long backend stretches (migrations, type-checks, deploys) are invisible to me. I'd love to glance at progress and nudge the session from my phone while away from the Mac. Dispatch is one-shot, Remote Control is what we actually need on Desktop.

@JapanJack
https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/issues/29006#issuecomment-4382322631

This is useful as a workaround, but its awful that we can't do /config in the desktop app to connect remote-control permanently... it doesn't make any sense having to do circus when its a really common feature

This worked for me:

1. Open a Code Session within the Desktop App
2. type /update-config
3. ask Claude to activate remote-control for all sessions

This should add "remoteControlAtStartup": true," to your settings.json. Any future code sessions will auto start remote control and show up in the mobile app.

Update: workaround confirmed end-to-end on Claude.app for macOS

Following up on my 2026-04-26 report. After today's diagnostic session, I can confirm:

The bug is real and reproducible. Claude.app's per-session "Enable Remote Control by default" path fails with [remote-control] bridge_state: failed — /login in ~/Library/Logs/Claude/main.log, even with:

• remoteControlAtStartup: true in ~/.claude/settings.json
• A valid Max-plan OAuth token with the full scope set including user:sessions:claude_code
• Multiple sign-out/sign-in cycles on both Desktop and iPhone
• Cleared bridge-state.json and buddy-tokens.json caches

None of those fix it. The failure is in the cowork-sandboxed bridge-handshake codepath, not in credentials or config. Underlying root cause is tracked in #44408.

The workaround from @JapanJack (#29006 comment 4476794314) works. Confirmed today on Claude.app 1.7196.0 + Claude Code CLI 2.1.143 + iPhone Claude app, Max plan:

1. Install standalone Claude Code CLI: npm install -g @anthropic-ai/claude-code
2. claude auth login (separate keychain credential from Claude.app)
3. claude --remote-control "seed" — leave the Terminal window open

Once that seed is running, every new Claude.app Code session auto-registers with Remote Control and shows up in the iPhone Code tab within seconds. The remoteControlAtStartup: true setting in Claude.app finally takes effect — but only because a non-sandboxed client has bootstrapped the account-level bridge state that Claude.app can't establish on its own.

Operational caveats:

• The Terminal seed must stay running. Quitting it (or rebooting) requires re-seeding before iPhone access works again.
• The seed counts as one Code session in the iPhone app — it's harmless, can be ignored or renamed.

This is a workaround, not a fix. Looking forward to #44408 landing.

<img width="605" height="53" alt="Image" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/1fbcdaf2-1318-4081-8484-5c9ebd734a34" />

Looks like this has started working for me in recent versions! I set the "always start" in my settings and the UI sessions seem to respect that now :D

Thanks guys!

I have remote control working, but only because I have the Claude CLI open and running at all times... would love to know if I can shut that down and streamline to "Desktop App only"

That last caveat matters: if a standalone CLI seed has to stay running, the workaround is not really Desktop-only; the seed has become the bridge owner/bootstrap process.

A clean Desktop-only fix should pass a stricter test:

• kill every standalone claude CLI process
• start only a Claude.app Code session
• confirm that exact Desktop session registers in mobile/web Remote Control
• confirm the mobile entry maps to the same Desktop session identity and disappears or changes state when Desktop closes

Until that passes, remoteControlAtStartup is useful config, but it is still layered on top of an external bootstrap. That distinction is probably why some users see it “working” while others still need a Terminal seed open.

New behavior this week:

I have to run /remote-control in the any new session I create for it to appear in the iphone app. Before yesterday(?) with the CLI running remote control, all new code sessions inside the MacOS desktop app were viewable on the iphone app. Now I have to specifically run /remote-control in the desktop app.

Really need this feature too.... PLEASE
there is already present specific option in Claude.app settings, but is doesn't give any effect, nothing changes...
what is it there for?

PLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEASE FIX ITTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT

meme demande, et j'ajouterais que l'application desktop est plus pratique et ergonimique que l'application cli, ce qui fait qu'on ne peux pas utiliser uniquement l'application cli qui fait perdre du temps a cause par exemple du fait qu'on ne puisse pas coller une capture d'écran directement dans l'interface, il faut l'enregistrer d'abord puis faire un glisser déplacer pour l'amener dans la conversation, tout ca fait perdre du temps.

I wonder why this is not working in the desktop app. In the terminal it is also working.
We need this ❤️

I wonder why this is not working in the desktop app. In the terminal it is also working. We need this ❤️

For some reason, one of my code sessions is currently working on remote control:

<img width="1080" height="981" alt="Image" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/be1e24b0-ff1c-4ea7-9276-6bfde4a6ce68" />

<img width="542" height="298" alt="Image" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/40f3edb9-5914-4c36-bf8f-0abdb93b781e" />

How is this STILL not supported? The inability to control Claude Desktop creates so much friction.

This works for me:

Install standalone Claude Code CLI: npm install -g @anthropic-ai/claude-code
claude auth login (separate keychain credential from Claude.app)
claude --remote-control "seed" — leave the Terminal window open
Once that seed is running, every new Claude.app Code session auto-registers with Remote Control and shows up in the iPhone Code tab within seconds. The remoteControlAtStartup: true setting in Claude.app finally takes effect — but only because a non-sandboxed client has bootstrapped the account-level bridge state that Claude.app can't establish on its own.

I want to be able to start a Claude Desktop Code session on Windows and access it from my Android phone Claude app too