rootshell Downloads & Revenuerootshell: Local Terminal, SSH · App Store
rootshell: Local Terminal, SSH is #130 in Developer Tools Free in Japan and charting in 5 of 30 countries we track.
Updated 12 Nov 2026 · rankings refresh through the day
DeveloperRootshell LLC
CategoryDeveloper Tools
PriceFree
Released
Rating★ 4.9 (53)
Version1.0.15
Age rating4+
First seen by us
25 Sep 2026
25 Sep 2026Installs (est.)5k+ worldwide
rootshell: Local Terminal, SSH update history & changes
Last change · 24 events since 20 Apr 2026Full timeline ↓📈Entered the top 100📈Entered the top 100📦Updated to version 1.0.15📦Updated to version 1.0.14🔎Top 10 for “terminal”🆕First spotted by AppInsider🆕Its developer released another app: rootshell：本地终端、SSH
Full timeline · 24 events
- 📈rootshell: Local Terminal, SSH entered the top 100Top Free · Developer Tools · GB
- 📈rootshell: Local Terminal, SSH entered the top 100Top Free · Developer Tools · KR
- 📈rootshell: Local Terminal, SSH entered the top 100Top Free · Developer Tools · FR
- 📈rootshell: Local Terminal, SSH entered the top 100Top Free · Developer Tools · DE
- 📦rootshell: Local Terminal, SSH updated to version 1.0.15Detached Keyboard & iPhone Duo
- Float the built-in Terminal Keyboard over the terminal on iPhone. Long-press the keyboard switch key and choose Detached; drag the ellipsis handle to move it.
- Placement and position are remembered after relaunch. On iPad, the menu is available with Use System Detached Keyboard off.
- On iOS 27.1 and later, the docked terminal keyboard splits around iPhone Duo's fold, with a space bar on each side. Toolbar buttons and swipe pages also avoid the fold. The floating keyboard settles clear of it where space allows.
- Fixed iPad system detached keyboard dragging, resizing and drawer clipping, plus full-width keyboard flashes when focusing terminals or switching tabs. Improved keyboard focus during Duo folds and herdr tab restoration.
Remote Ports
- Discover listening TCP ports on remote hosts with Show Remote Ports in Settings > Appearance > Window. Tap the globe at the terminal's bottom-right, then choose a port to forward it and open its page in a rootshell tab.
- Edit the address to change paths or use HTTP/HTTPS, including self-signed development servers on that forward. Port menus offer Copy Local URL and Stop Forward.
- Supports SSH, tssh and the retained SSH connection for Mosh/Roam, including tmux and herdr control-mode panes. Restored Mosh/Roam sessions need a fresh SSH bootstrap after relaunch.
- Off by default. Scans run for visible terminals while the app is in the foreground. Tunnels bind only to this device and end with the connection.
Screen Sharing
- Connect to wayshare servers on Linux, including Hyprland desktops, using Apple SRP in Standard or High Performance mode. New Remote System choices recognize wayshare automatically or let you select Linux to send Option as Alt.
- Fixed Standard mode waiting indefinitely for the first image on Macs with multiple displays, cropped displays and misplaced clicks, and VeNCrypt TLS handshake failures with servers such as WayVNC.
Agent Push Notifications
- Added Pi, Oh My Pi and Hermes integrations for completed turns, failures and supported requests for input. Notification titles include the sending hostname.
- Fixed lost notifications from one-shot Codex commands and improved Pi/Oh My Pi completion delivery.
- Update rootshell-notify on each sending computer with Install or Upgrade the Hook Client in Push Notification settings, then restart agents or reload extensions. For Hermes, also run hermes plugins enable rootshell-push.
Custom Keys & Sessions
- New Symbols tab in the key-combination picker for custom toolbar keys and swipe gestures. Fixed Shift/Ctrl combinations with digits and punctuation, modifiers on Page Up/Down, and lost Shift in custom combinations under Neovim's kitty keyboard protocol.
- Fixed tssh dropping terminal pixel-size replies, restoring graphics sizing in remote apps such as terminal-browser, including tssh launched from the local shell.
- Fixed tmux focus jumping back after rapid pane changes. Switching zmx sessions in Exposé now moves only the selected pane, keeps attach commands out of shell history and restores the chosen session after reconnecting or relaunching.
Local Tools & Reliability
- Updated Vim to 9.2.1225 with security fixes and restored missing runtime files for syntax support and Python indentation.
- Updated tssh/VPN certificate validation and curl's certificate bundle to reject compromised eMudhra CA keys.
- Fixed launch hangs and crashes while restoring bookmarked folders, and local-shell crashes when the working folder was deleted or inaccessible.
- Fixed iPad tab-menu freezes, Command+T opening an unfocused shell behind Connections, Escape failing to dismiss Connections, and launch commands not executing in remote Windows consoles.
- Floating File Manager, HTTP Capture and Find panels can move over the pinned tab sidebar. Fixed theme matching after closing a window. Notifications now reveal panes hidden by a zoomed or full-screen sibling.… more - 📦rootshell: Local Terminal, SSH updated to version 1.0.14Tailscale & SSH
- New rootshell Only mode reaches your tailnet while keeping another VPN connected. Supports SSH, SFTP, Mosh, tssh and Screen Sharing, with MagicDNS, subnet routes, optional exit nodes and automatic connection. Enable Use in Local Shell for curl and git; ping also supports tailnet devices.
- View connection uptime and traffic graphs in VPN settings. Start Tailscale from widgets, Control Center or Shortcuts after signing in. Updated Tailscale to 1.104.1.
- Connect through multiple SSH jump hosts, with separate credentials per hop. Import ProxyJump chains from OpenSSH config, or use comma-separated -J lists with ssh, tssh, scp and sftp. tssh also supports multi-hop UDP relays with tsshd.
AWS & Remote Credentials
- Sign in to AWS with IAM Identity Center (AWS SSO). Choose your account and role after browser sign-in; temporary credentials refresh automatically for cloud sync, Kubernetes and Bedrock.
- Remote SSH/tssh programs can request passwords or tokens through rootshell-askpass, with password-manager AutoFill. Enable Allow Credential Requests in connection or profile settings and install the helper on the server. Requests require approval; values are not stored or logged.
Files & Local Tools
- Browse as Root (sudo) in the remote file manager lets you manage protected files over SSH or tssh. Supports passwordless sudo, password prompts and one-time codes; requires sudo permission and a server-side sftp-server.
- HTTP Capture's Decrypted Hosts list now offers Reset to Defaults.
- Updated curl to 8.23.0 and archive tools to libarchive 3.8.10, with security and concurrency fixes. unzip rejects unsafe paths and symlink targets and tries .zip/.ZIP extensions; tar adds --mode.
Appearance & Backgrounds
- New Live Weather background follows the sky with sun, moon, stars, clouds and precipitation. Choose a city or device location; location is rounded to about 1 km and sent directly to weather providers. Tap the tab sidebar's weather row for details and a six-hour forecast. Includes previews, reading protection and motion controls.
- Theme Gradient adds eight theme-based styles, custom colors, brightness, vibrance and optional drift. Use it inside terminals or as a window-wide backdrop.
- Optional Rounded Panes turns terminals, splits and docked sidebars into rounded cards, with matching Integrated tabs.
- Text Above Effect preserves text, cursor and selection colors over backgrounds. Scenes fit above the docked keyboard. Soft Scroll Edges optionally fades and blurs lists under toolbars.
- Choose from four sizes for the tab bar's group/project menu.
Program Status & AI
- Program Status Protocol (OSC 7501) support lets compatible programs report activity, progress, input requests and errors to the sidebar and agent inbox. Built-in Vim and Helix report status, including failed saves and unsaved changes.
- Tabs and sidebars show shell, editor and program icons, including Node.js, Git and Python. Automatic in tmux control mode and current rootshell-fork herdr; other remote shells need shell integration. Show Program Icons controls visibility.
- Faster herdr tab switching and Claude Code background-agent counts in herdr panes. Added Claude Haiku 5.5 for Anthropic and Bedrock.
iPhone, iPad & Reliability
- Adaptive iPhone Duo layouts on iOS 27.1 include camera-aware tab controls and laptop-pose keyboard placement.
- Smoother terminal scrolling, including ProMotion, and reduced memory overhead across panes.
- Fixed saved tabs and layouts being lost after force-quitting, keyboard input being lost after full-screen VNC, and shell tools choosing a secondary language when English is preferred.
- Fixed an iPadOS 27 launch crash with the touch keyboard, detached keyboard positions changing across tabs, and empty keyboard flashes when toggling the AI sidebar with a hardware keyboard.
- Hardened SSH, SFTP and forwarded-agent message handling, and fixed excessive CPU use in decrypted HTTP/2 capture.… more - 🔎rootshell: Local Terminal, SSH reached Top 10 for “terminal”#10 in Indonesia search · popularity 53
- 📈rootshell: Local Terminal, SSH entered the top 100Top Free · Developer Tools · AU
- 📈rootshell: Local Terminal, SSH charting in a new countryBrazil
- 📈rootshell: Local Terminal, SSH charting in a new countrySaudi Arabia
- 📦rootshell: Local Terminal, SSH updated to version 1.0.13Tailscale & VPN
- Built-in Tailscale connects to tailnet devices, MagicDNS names and subnet routes. Route selected traffic through SSH or tssh with domain, IP and CIDR rules.
- Settings > VPN adds quick reconnect and automatic recovery after a restart or app update. Manage VPN profiles with the new local-shell vpn command.
HTTP & HTTPS Capture
- Inspect HTTP/1.1, HTTP/2 and WebSocket traffic through an SSH/tssh VPN, Tailscale or Local Capture without a remote server. Open from Settings > VPN, the keyboard toolbar or Ctrl-Cmd-H.
- Search requests; inspect headers, cookies, timing and bodies, including JSON, XML, plists and images. Copy as cURL, export HAR or ZIP, record packets for Wireshark, and add header or body rewrite rules.
- HTTPS decryption requires a trusted capture certificate and selected hosts; it is off by default.
Cloud Storage & Files
- Browse S3-compatible storage alongside local and SFTP folders, including Amazon S3, Backblaze B2, Akamai, Google Cloud Storage and custom endpoints. Add accounts in Settings > Connections > Storage Providers; providers and keys sync through iCloud Keychain.
- Transfer and manage files, create buckets, edit metadata and generate expiring share links. Compatible copies run on the server. The rf file browser also supports S3 providers.
- Faster folder transfers and SFTP browsing. Paste files, images and PDFs into the file manager. New upload defaults control the destination, inserted path format and confirmation prompts.
- On iPad, Files and HTTP Capture support resizable overlays and a Full Size view.
On-Device Dictation
- Dictate commands and coding-agent prompts with downloadable Parakeet or SenseVoice models. Supports 25 European languages, plus Chinese, Cantonese, Japanese and Korean. Audio stays on your device.
- Preview text, insert phrases live, or use Hands-Free to submit each phrase. Choose Command, Prose or Agent Prompt formatting, with custom vocabulary and Parakeet vocabulary boosting.
- Enable in Settings > Terminal > Dictation. Swipe left on the terminal keyboard or press Option-Cmd-R to open it.
Keyboard & Appearance
- Swipe vertically on the terminal keyboard to change height, including Extra Small. Hold the Apple Keyboard key to choose a style.
- Improved fast typing accuracy, haptics and toolbar alignment. Character Preview can now be disabled.
- Optional Tint by Host gives each SSH destination a consistent background shade that follows your theme.
- Look up IP addresses and locations with Shift-Cmd-I.
Sessions & Remote Tools
- Detach and resume tmux, zellij, herdr and zmx sessions with a Reconnect banner that preserves the session target. Reopening an attached session focuses its existing tab.
- Option-Cmd-S opens a numbered picker to swap tmux control-mode panes. Added optional confirmation before closing a tab.
- SSH/tssh sessions process output and notifications during the limited background time iOS grants. Enable Keep TCP SSH Alive in Background.
- Remote programs can open web links in your device's browser using the rootshell-open helpers. Enable Settings > Terminal > Program Links.
AI Agent
- ChatGPT sign-in now supports multiple saved accounts and workspaces. Sign in again after updating via Settings > AI Agent > OpenAI > Continue with ChatGPT.
- Added usage-management links, refreshed model choices and improved multi-step Claude tool conversations, including Sonnet 5.5 support.
Performance & Reliability
- Faster large pastes, terminal output and navigation with many tabs; lower memory use and improved stability in large multiplexer sessions.
- Fixed SSH login hangs with early server banners, delayed Mosh updates after idle periods, and crashes when undocking a Magic Keyboard with Terminal Keyboard enabled.
- Reduced app size. Helix retains Git support through libgit2; use git instead of the removed gix command. Bundled SQL and Kotlin syntax grammars were removed.… more - 📈rootshell: Local Terminal, SSH entered the top 100Top Free · Developer Tools · ID
- 📈rootshell: Local Terminal, SSH entered the top 100Top Free · Developer Tools · IT
- 📈rootshell: Local Terminal, SSH charting in a new countryFrance
- 📈rootshell: Local Terminal, SSH entered the top 100 in 4 chartsTop Free · Developer Tools · AE · Top Free · Developer Tools · CA · Top Free · Developer Tools · JP · Top Free · Developer Tools · RU
- 📈rootshell: Local Terminal, SSH charting in a new country in 4 chartsUnited Arab Emirates · United Kingdom · Indonesia · India
- 📈rootshell: Local Terminal, SSH charting in a new country in 2 chartsSouth Korea · Russia
- 📈rootshell: Local Terminal, SSH entered the top 100Top Free · Developer Tools · US
- 📈rootshell: Local Terminal, SSH charting in a new country in 2 chartsItaly · United States
- 📈rootshell: Local Terminal, SSH charting in a new country in 2 chartsGermany · Japan
- 🆕rootshell: Local Terminal, SSH first spotted by AppInsider#55 in Top Free · Developer Tools · Canada
- 📦rootshell: Local Terminal, SSH version 1.0.12SFTP File Manager
- Browse local folders and remote SSH or tssh hosts side by side. Copy and move files and folders, rename items, create folders, preview files and open folders in a terminal.
- Track queued transfers with progress, speed, cancellation and retry. Resolve conflicts with Replace, Skip or Keep Both.
- Open from the keyboard toolbar or Cmd-Shift-U. Use a sidebar or floating overlay on iPad, or a sheet on iPhone, with hardware keyboard navigation.
New Terminal Keyboard
- Optional English QWERTY keyboard with swipe-accessible Symbols, Navigation and Shortcuts pages. Choose Shell, Vim, Emacs, Nano or Agent presets, use sticky modifiers, and hold Space to move the cursor.
- Seven styles: Flat, Sculpted, Steampunk, Phosphor, Beige Box, Neon Grid and Circuit Board. Customize theme colors, height, haptics and optional key sounds.
- Float or dock the keyboard on iPad. Keep keyboard state shared across tabs or remember it per tab. Optional spelling suggestions apply only when tapped.
- Enable in Settings > Terminal > Terminal Keyboard. Switch to Apple's keyboard for other languages, emoji, swipe typing or dictation. iPhone adds live previews and a hands-on keyboard tutorial.
herdr Control Mode
- Use native rootshell tabs and split panes for herdr over SSH or tssh. Manage workspaces and Git worktrees, rearrange panes, and see agent activity and pane notifications.
- Enable Control Mode in the session picker or choose herdr (control) in a profile. Requires herdr 0.9.0 or newer. Regular herdr works in fallback mode; the optional experimental rootshell fork adds smooth native scrolling, global scrollback search and shared viewing with a compatible host.
Sessions & Panes
- Discover Sessions rescans without reconnecting. Automatic remote discovery has its own setting, and the iPhone session picker better accommodates the keyboard and larger text.
- Open in Folder (Cmd-Shift-J) creates a tab or split in a folder on the focused host, with browsing, completion and recent folders.
- Choose Pane to Zoom (Option-Cmd-P) shows numbered panes in tmux and herdr control mode. Tap a pane or type its number to zoom it.
- Optional confirmation before closing a split pane. Improved tmux split equalization, divider dragging and scroll-position preservation.
- Drag images and PDFs from Files or Photos into SSH-backed terminals to upload, including tmux and herdr control-mode panes.
Touch & Appearance
- Animated Gesture Help in Settings > Terminal explains gestures for your device. With rootshell's selection loupe enabled, hold and tap the loupe with a second finger to right-click or drag in mouse-aware terminal apps.
- Screen Sharing gains Trackpad pointer mode, adjustable pointer speed and a choice of local or remote cursor.
- New customizable Aquarium background and enhanced Jellyfish graphics. Choose independent effects for the terminal keyboard and iPad sidebar.
Connections & Reliability
- Added OpenSSH strict key exchange and improved compatibility with servers including MikroTik RouterOS. Fixed keepalive hangs, greeting-related host-key verification failures, data loss during key renewal and HMAC authentication failures.
- Configure tssh connection timeouts per profile. Improved SSH and Screen Sharing survival during brief app switches when Keep SSH Alive in Background is enabled, subject to iOS background limits.
- Fixed garbled terminal content during resizing and out-of-order SSH size updates, plus content extending beneath the iPhone keyboard toolbar.
- Improved dictation corrections, including Korean input, and hardware keyboard mod-tap behavior. Fixed unresponsive iPadOS 27 menu commands and crashes from malformed YubiKey RSA public keys.
- Hidden tabs retain lower GPU memory use after layout changes. Updated AI model choices for OpenAI, Anthropic and Amazon Bedrock connections.… more - 🆕rootshell: Local Terminal, SSH: its developer released another app: rootshell：本地终端、SSH
- 🆕rootshell: Local Terminal, SSH released on the App Store
Collected from the stores by AppInsider since we first spotted the app. Dates are when we saw each change.
Rating
4.9 ★
53 ratings
Measured
Best rank now
#130
Developer Tools FreeMeasured
New ratings a week
3.8
▲ +83% vs the 2 weeks before
Measured
rootshell: Local Terminal, SSH on the App Store
App details
App ID
6755794662
Publisher
Rootshell LLC
On the store since
Apr 2026
Under a year
Minimum OS
iOS 18.0+
iPhone XS and later
Devices
iPhone · iPad
Universal purchase
Content rating
4+
Languages
25
AR CA CS DA NL EN FI FR DE HE HU IT …
Size
395 MB
Also listed in
Productivity
rootshell: Local Terminal, SSH downloads
Worldwide, per day, and installs to date. The band is open; the exact number is free with an account.
How this is calculated
Apple publishes no download counts. App Store downloads come from chart positions and daily rating growth per country, calibrated on Google Play install counts; lifetime installs from ratings worldwide × installs per rating. Confidence is the chance the real number is within half to double ours.
Where rootshell: Local Terminal, SSH's downloads come from Modelled
Last 30 days: organic search, browsing the store, features and paid ads.
Active users
All platforms, worldwide. Free with an account.
Stickiness (DAU / MAU)
how many monthly users open it on a given day
Retention · share of new users still active
Day 1
Day 7
Day 30
Time spent · per daily user
Average time spent Pro
min a day
Sessions a day Pro
Time per session Pro
min
How this is calculated
Monthly users come from lifetime installs across every store, fitted on monthly active user figures companies publish; daily users = monthly × the typical daily/monthly ratio for the category. Confidence is the chance the real number is within half to double ours.
Where it ranks now
Every top chart it appears in across 30 countries.
| Country | Charts | Rank |
|---|---|---|
| Japan | Developer ToolsFree | #130 |
 United Kingdom | Developer ToolsFree | #139 |
 Germany | Developer ToolsFree | #139 |
| Canada | Developer ToolsFree | #106 |
 Italy | Developer ToolsFree | #89 |
Apps near rootshell: Local Terminal, SSH on the chart
Developer Tools Free, around #130.
Ratings
App Store, worldwide.
Rating
4.9 ★
53 ratings
Measured
Ratings
53
Measured
Review momentum
ⓘ How we measure thisNew ratings a week
3.8
▲ +83% vs the 2 weeks before
Lifetime rating
4.9★
recent stars not readable yet: new ratings are a tiny share of the total
Review momentum
85/100
faster than 91% of Developer Tools apps
Review momentum (0-100) blends how fast the app collects ratings compared with other apps in its category (60%), whether that pace is speeding up (25%) and what recent raters give it (15%; recent stars well below lifetime pull it down). Ratings counts are read daily. A jump usually means a launch, a feature, ads or a new review prompt.
What users say about rootshell: Local Terminal, SSH
From the 12 most recent App Store reviews in the US.
Mostly positive (92% of recent reviews give 4–5 stars). People like it for its features and content, and speed. Recent reviews are more negative than earlier ones.
What people like
- Features & content: “The number of features built into this is crazy”
- Speed & performance: “It utilizes Ghostty’s “engine” (libcore) under the hood hence the great performance”
- Design: “This is an excellent application with a nice interface and I can confirm it does not phone home”
- Price & subscription
About rootshell: Local Terminal, SSH
rootshell is a desktop-class terminal emulator built on libghostty — the GPU-accelerated engine behind the Ghostty desktop terminal. A local shell on every platform, Mac screen sharing, native SSH, mosh-compatible roaming, tssh, system-wide VPN, native git, and Metal rendering in a single app.
NEW: SCREEN SHARING
Reach your Mac's screen, not just its shell, from your iPhone or iPad. High Performance mode streams up to 4K at 60 FPS, fully encrypted. Match Client sizing spins up a virtual display sized exactly to your device: no panning, no letterboxing, with remote system audio. Standard VNC mode covers Linux and headless machines, and tunnels over SSH jump hosts. Nothing to install on the Mac — turn on Screen Sharing and connect. Touch, trackpad, hardware keyboard, and two-way clipboard all work, in tabs, splits, or full screen.
METAL-ACCELERATED TERMINAL
Built on libghostty's Zig core with direct Metal rendering. Smooth scrolling, zero-flicker synchronized output, and full mouse capture for tmux, vim, and zellij. Tabs, split panes, and persistent scrollback across app restarts.
THREE REMOTE PROTOCOLS, ONE APP
• SSH — Native Swift SSH client with Ed25519, ECDSA, RSA, and post-quantum ML-KEM + ML-DSA. Jump hosts, port and agent forwarding, and Keychain password storage.
• Rootshell Roam — Mosh-compatible sessions survive network changes and app restarts. Multipath TCP bonds WiFi and cellular. Predictive local echo keeps typing responsive. STUN-based NAT traversal punches through firewalls.
• tssh with QUIC (TLS 1.3) and KCP transport for lower latency, full native scrollback, and session resumption.
NATIVE TMUX INTEGRATION
Attach in control mode (tmux -CC) and tmux windows become native tabs, panes become real splits — copy, search, and scroll with native gestures. A dashboard shows live window previews, and tabs survive restarts over tssh.
SSH VPN
Turn any SSH or tssh session into a system-wide VPN. Route all device traffic through your remote server. No extra software on the server — if you can SSH to it, you can VPN through it.
NATIVE GIT
Clone, commit, diff, log, blame, rebase, cherry-pick, and worktree — in native Swift with SSH transport. Syntax-highlighted pager output and optional AI-generated commit messages.
VOICE AI AGENT
Talk to an always-on assistant over Gemini Live. It reads scrollback, runs SSH commands hands-free, searches the web, and asks permission before anything risky.
OPTIONAL TEXT AI
Chat with Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, or 400+ models via OpenRouter. Bring your own API key.
HARDWARE SECURITY KEYS
Private keys never leave hardware. FIDO2/WebAuthn authentication with touch-to-sign.
SANDBOXED LOCAL SHELL
A full local shell with vim 9.1, Helix, SFTP, SCP, curl, jq, mtr, and standard Unix utilities. The rf browser offers yazi-style miller columns with image previews and git indicators. croc peer-to-peer file transfer, flag-aware tab completion, and prompt themes.
CLOUD & KUBERNETES
Connect to AWS, Azure, DigitalOcean, A
NEW: SCREEN SHARING
Reach your Mac's screen, not just its shell, from your iPhone or iPad. High Performance mode streams up to 4K at 60 FPS, fully encrypted. Match Client sizing spins up a virtual display sized exactly to your device: no panning, no letterboxing, with remote system audio. Standard VNC mode covers Linux and headless machines, and tunnels over SSH jump hosts. Nothing to install on the Mac — turn on Screen Sharing and connect. Touch, trackpad, hardware keyboard, and two-way clipboard all work, in tabs, splits, or full screen.
METAL-ACCELERATED TERMINAL
Built on libghostty's Zig core with direct Metal rendering. Smooth scrolling, zero-flicker synchronized output, and full mouse capture for tmux, vim, and zellij. Tabs, split panes, and persistent scrollback across app restarts.
THREE REMOTE PROTOCOLS, ONE APP
• SSH — Native Swift SSH client with Ed25519, ECDSA, RSA, and post-quantum ML-KEM + ML-DSA. Jump hosts, port and agent forwarding, and Keychain password storage.
• Rootshell Roam — Mosh-compatible sessions survive network changes and app restarts. Multipath TCP bonds WiFi and cellular. Predictive local echo keeps typing responsive. STUN-based NAT traversal punches through firewalls.
• tssh with QUIC (TLS 1.3) and KCP transport for lower latency, full native scrollback, and session resumption.
NATIVE TMUX INTEGRATION
Attach in control mode (tmux -CC) and tmux windows become native tabs, panes become real splits — copy, search, and scroll with native gestures. A dashboard shows live window previews, and tabs survive restarts over tssh.
SSH VPN
Turn any SSH or tssh session into a system-wide VPN. Route all device traffic through your remote server. No extra software on the server — if you can SSH to it, you can VPN through it.
NATIVE GIT
Clone, commit, diff, log, blame, rebase, cherry-pick, and worktree — in native Swift with SSH transport. Syntax-highlighted pager output and optional AI-generated commit messages.
VOICE AI AGENT
Talk to an always-on assistant over Gemini Live. It reads scrollback, runs SSH commands hands-free, searches the web, and asks permission before anything risky.
OPTIONAL TEXT AI
Chat with Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, or 400+ models via OpenRouter. Bring your own API key.
HARDWARE SECURITY KEYS
Private keys never leave hardware. FIDO2/WebAuthn authentication with touch-to-sign.
SANDBOXED LOCAL SHELL
A full local shell with vim 9.1, Helix, SFTP, SCP, curl, jq, mtr, and standard Unix utilities. The rf browser offers yazi-style miller columns with image previews and git indicators. croc peer-to-peer file transfer, flag-aware tab completion, and prompt themes.
CLOUD & KUBERNETES
Connect to AWS, Azure, DigitalOcean, A
Latest updates
1.0.15
Detached Keyboard & iPhone Duo
- Float the built-in Terminal Keyboard over the terminal on iPhone. Long-press the keyboard switch key and choose Detached; drag the ellipsis handle to move it.
- Placement and position are remembered after relaunch. On iPad, the menu is available with Use System Detached Keyboard off.
- On iOS 27.1 and later, the docked terminal keyboard splits around iPhone Duo's fold, with a space bar on each side. Toolbar buttons and swipe pages also avoid the fold. The floating keyboard settles clear of it where space allows.
- Fixed iPad system detached keyboard dragging, resizing and drawer clipping, plus full-width keyboard flashes when focusing terminals or switching tabs. Improved keyboard focus during Duo folds and herdr tab restoration.
Remote Ports
- Discover listening TCP ports on remote hosts with Show Remote Ports in Settings > Appearance > Window. Tap the globe at the terminal's bottom-right, then choose a port to forward it and open its page in a rootshell tab.
- Edit the address to change paths or use HTTP/HTTPS, including self-signed development servers on that forward. Port menus offer Copy Local URL and Stop Forward.
- Supports SSH, tssh and the retained SSH connection for Mosh/Roam, including tmux and herdr control-mode panes. Restored Mosh/Roam sessions need a fresh SSH bootstrap after relaunch.
- Off by default. Scans run for visible terminals while the app is in the foreground. Tunnels bind only to this device and end with the connection.
Screen Sharing
- Connect to wayshare servers on Linux, including Hyprland desktops, using Apple SRP in Standard or High Performance mode. New Remote System choices recognize wayshare automatically or let you select Linux to send Option as Alt.
- Fixed Standard mode waiting indefinitely for the first image on Macs with multiple displays, cropped displays and misplaced clicks, and VeNCrypt TLS handshake failures with servers such as WayVNC.
Agent Push Notifications
- Added Pi, Oh My Pi and Hermes integrations for completed turns, failures and supported requests for input. Notification titles include the sending hostname.
- Fixed lost notifications from one-shot Codex commands and improved Pi/Oh My Pi completion delivery.
- Update rootshell-notify on each sending computer with Install or Upgrade the Hook Client in Push Notification settings, then restart agents or reload extensions. For Hermes, also run hermes plugins enable rootshell-push.
Custom Keys & Sessions
- New Symbols tab in the key-combination picker for custom toolbar keys and swipe gestures. Fixed Shift/Ctrl combinations with digits and punctuation, modifiers on Page Up/Down, and lost Shift in custom combinations under Neovim's kitty keyboard protocol.
- Fixed tssh dropping terminal pixel-size replies, restoring graphics sizing in remote apps such as terminal-browser, including tssh launched from the local shell.
- Fixed tmux focus jumping back after rapid pane changes. Switching zmx sessions in Exposé now moves only the selected pane, keeps attach commands out of shell history and restores the chosen session after reconnecting or relaunching.
Local Tools & Reliability
- Updated Vim to 9.2.1225 with security fixes and restored missing runtime files for syntax support and Python indentation.
- Updated tssh/VPN certificate validation and curl's certificate bundle to reject compromised eMudhra CA keys.
- Fixed launch hangs and crashes while restoring bookmarked folders, and local-shell crashes when the working folder was deleted or inaccessible.
- Fixed iPad tab-menu freezes, Command+T opening an unfocused shell behind Connections, Escape failing to dismiss Connections, and launch commands not executing in remote Windows consoles.
- Floating File Manager, HTTP Capture and Find panels can move over the pinned tab sidebar. Fixed theme matching after closing a window. Notifications now reveal panes hidden by a zoomed or full-screen sibling.
1.0.14
Tailscale & SSH
- New rootshell Only mode reaches your tailnet while keeping another VPN connected. Supports SSH, SFTP, Mosh, tssh and Screen Sharing, with MagicDNS, subnet routes, optional exit nodes and automatic connection. Enable Use in Local Shell for curl and git; ping also supports tailnet devices.
- View connection uptime and traffic graphs in VPN settings. Start Tailscale from widgets, Control Center or Shortcuts after signing in. Updated Tailscale to 1.104.1.
- Connect through multiple SSH jump hosts, with separate credentials per hop. Import ProxyJump chains from OpenSSH config, or use comma-separated -J lists with ssh, tssh, scp and sftp. tssh also supports multi-hop UDP relays with tsshd.
AWS & Remote Credentials
- Sign in to AWS with IAM Identity Center (AWS SSO). Choose your account and role after browser sign-in; temporary credentials refresh automatically for cloud sync, Kubernetes and Bedrock.
- Remote SSH/tssh programs can request passwords or tokens through rootshell-askpass, with password-manager AutoFill. Enable Allow Credential Requests in connection or profile settings and install the helper on the server. Requests require approval; values are not stored or logged.
Files & Local Tools
- Browse as Root (sudo) in the remote file manager lets you manage protected files over SSH or tssh. Supports passwordless sudo, password prompts and one-time codes; requires sudo permission and a server-side sftp-server.
- HTTP Capture's Decrypted Hosts list now offers Reset to Defaults.
- Updated curl to 8.23.0 and archive tools to libarchive 3.8.10, with security and concurrency fixes. unzip rejects unsafe paths and symlink targets and tries .zip/.ZIP extensions; tar adds --mode.
Appearance & Backgrounds
- New Live Weather background follows the sky with sun, moon, stars, clouds and precipitation. Choose a city or device location; location is rounded to about 1 km and sent directly to weather providers. Tap the tab sidebar's weather row for details and a six-hour forecast. Includes previews, reading protection and motion controls.
- Theme Gradient adds eight theme-based styles, custom colors, brightness, vibrance and optional drift. Use it inside terminals or as a window-wide backdrop.
- Optional Rounded Panes turns terminals, splits and docked sidebars into rounded cards, with matching Integrated tabs.
- Text Above Effect preserves text, cursor and selection colors over backgrounds. Scenes fit above the docked keyboard. Soft Scroll Edges optionally fades and blurs lists under toolbars.
- Choose from four sizes for the tab bar's group/project menu.
Program Status & AI
- Program Status Protocol (OSC 7501) support lets compatible programs report activity, progress, input requests and errors to the sidebar and agent inbox. Built-in Vim and Helix report status, including failed saves and unsaved changes.
- Tabs and sidebars show shell, editor and program icons, including Node.js, Git and Python. Automatic in tmux control mode and current rootshell-fork herdr; other remote shells need shell integration. Show Program Icons controls visibility.
- Faster herdr tab switching and Claude Code background-agent counts in herdr panes. Added Claude Haiku 5.5 for Anthropic and Bedrock.
iPhone, iPad & Reliability
- Adaptive iPhone Duo layouts on iOS 27.1 include camera-aware tab controls and laptop-pose keyboard placement.
- Smoother terminal scrolling, including ProMotion, and reduced memory overhead across panes.
- Fixed saved tabs and layouts being lost after force-quitting, keyboard input being lost after full-screen VNC, and shell tools choosing a secondary language when English is preferred.
- Fixed an iPadOS 27 launch crash with the touch keyboard, detached keyboard positions changing across tabs, and empty keyboard flashes when toggling the AI sidebar with a hardware keyboard.
- Hardened SSH, SFTP and forwarded-agent message handling, and fixed excessive CPU use in decrypted HTTP/2 capture.
1.0.13
Tailscale & VPN
- Built-in Tailscale connects to tailnet devices, MagicDNS names and subnet routes. Route selected traffic through SSH or tssh with domain, IP and CIDR rules.
- Settings > VPN adds quick reconnect and automatic recovery after a restart or app update. Manage VPN profiles with the new local-shell vpn command.
HTTP & HTTPS Capture
- Inspect HTTP/1.1, HTTP/2 and WebSocket traffic through an SSH/tssh VPN, Tailscale or Local Capture without a remote server. Open from Settings > VPN, the keyboard toolbar or Ctrl-Cmd-H.
- Search requests; inspect headers, cookies, timing and bodies, including JSON, XML, plists and images. Copy as cURL, export HAR or ZIP, record packets for Wireshark, and add header or body rewrite rules.
- HTTPS decryption requires a trusted capture certificate and selected hosts; it is off by default.
Cloud Storage & Files
- Browse S3-compatible storage alongside local and SFTP folders, including Amazon S3, Backblaze B2, Akamai, Google Cloud Storage and custom endpoints. Add accounts in Settings > Connections > Storage Providers; providers and keys sync through iCloud Keychain.
- Transfer and manage files, create buckets, edit metadata and generate expiring share links. Compatible copies run on the server. The rf file browser also supports S3 providers.
- Faster folder transfers and SFTP browsing. Paste files, images and PDFs into the file manager. New upload defaults control the destination, inserted path format and confirmation prompts.
- On iPad, Files and HTTP Capture support resizable overlays and a Full Size view.
On-Device Dictation
- Dictate commands and coding-agent prompts with downloadable Parakeet or SenseVoice models. Supports 25 European languages, plus Chinese, Cantonese, Japanese and Korean. Audio stays on your device.
- Preview text, insert phrases live, or use Hands-Free to submit each phrase. Choose Command, Prose or Agent Prompt formatting, with custom vocabulary and Parakeet vocabulary boosting.
- Enable in Settings > Terminal > Dictation. Swipe left on the terminal keyboard or press Option-Cmd-R to open it.
Keyboard & Appearance
- Swipe vertically on the terminal keyboard to change height, including Extra Small. Hold the Apple Keyboard key to choose a style.
- Improved fast typing accuracy, haptics and toolbar alignment. Character Preview can now be disabled.
- Optional Tint by Host gives each SSH destination a consistent background shade that follows your theme.
- Look up IP addresses and locations with Shift-Cmd-I.
Sessions & Remote Tools
- Detach and resume tmux, zellij, herdr and zmx sessions with a Reconnect banner that preserves the session target. Reopening an attached session focuses its existing tab.
- Option-Cmd-S opens a numbered picker to swap tmux control-mode panes. Added optional confirmation before closing a tab.
- SSH/tssh sessions process output and notifications during the limited background time iOS grants. Enable Keep TCP SSH Alive in Background.
- Remote programs can open web links in your device's browser using the rootshell-open helpers. Enable Settings > Terminal > Program Links.
AI Agent
- ChatGPT sign-in now supports multiple saved accounts and workspaces. Sign in again after updating via Settings > AI Agent > OpenAI > Continue with ChatGPT.
- Added usage-management links, refreshed model choices and improved multi-step Claude tool conversations, including Sonnet 5.5 support.
Performance & Reliability
- Faster large pastes, terminal output and navigation with many tabs; lower memory use and improved stability in large multiplexer sessions.
- Fixed SSH login hangs with early server banners, delayed Mosh updates after idle periods, and crashes when undocking a Magic Keyboard with Terminal Keyboard enabled.
- Reduced app size. Helix retains Git support through libgit2; use git instead of the removed gix command. Bundled SQL and Kotlin syntax grammars were removed.
