IOSTerm app icon
v1.0 · on the App Store soon SwiftUI native iOS 17+ · iPhone & iPad

A real terminal.
On your phone. On your iPad.

IOSTerm is a native iOS SSH, SFTP and terminal client built for developers and sysadmins. Full ANSI terminal with tmux, remote files in the Files app, Live Activities, Shortcuts, Handoff, and optional on-device AI command generation. No accounts, no tracking, no backend.

Coming to the App Store See what's inside

iPhone & iPad · iOS 17+ · one-time purchase, no subscriptions

IOSTerm running on iPad with sidebar listing Hive and Roon servers, SSH Keys and Settings entries
SwiftUI native iOS 17+ iPhone & iPad tmux-aware sessions Files app integration App Intents / Siri Handoff iCloud Keychain End-to-end encrypted No tracking

What's inside

A full terminal, not a toy.

Every feature you expect from a desktop SSH client — and a few that only make sense on a device that knows your Apple ID, your Keychain, and the Files app.

  • Terminal that actually works

    Full ANSI terminal emulator with 256-color + truecolor, mouse support, UTF-8, and bracketed paste. Vim, htop, btop, nano — everything renders the way you expect.

  • tmux-aware sessions

    Opt-in tmux integration keeps your work alive across wifi drops and app backgrounding. Reconnect on the train, pick up exactly where you left off.

  • Remote files in Files.app

    Every server registers as a File Provider domain. Browse, open, and edit remote files from any app — Pages, Textastic, Working Copy — like iCloud Drive for your servers.

  • Run sheet

    One-shot commands without opening a full shell. Pull down the Run sheet, type a command, get the output. History syncs privately through your iCloud account.

  • Siri & Shortcuts

    App Intents for connect, healthcheck and restart. Donate frequent actions so Siri learns your workflow: "Hey Siri, restart nginx on hive."

  • Handoff between devices

    Start a command on your iPhone, finish it on your iPad or Mac. Unfinished drafts ride the private CloudKit database across every device you own.

  • Modern crypto, legacy mode

    Ed25519, ECDSA, RSA-2048+, modern key-exchange and ciphers by default. Flip the Legacy toggle for OpenSSH < 6.7 and RHEL 5/6 servers — nothing is forgotten.

  • Optional AI drawer

    Context-aware help from the Anthropic API using your own key. Your device talks directly to anthropic.com — the developer runs no backend, sees no prompts, stores nothing.

  • Secrets stay in Keychain

    Passwords and private keys live in the iOS Keychain. iCloud Keychain syncs them across your Apple devices end-to-end-encrypted by Apple. Never on our servers.

Under the hood

It's a real SSH client. Not a shim.

IOSTerm speaks the actual SSH protocol to your actual servers. No cloud relay, no middleman, no "server-assisted" anything. Your device opens a TCP socket and performs the handshake — exactly like OpenSSH does.

  • Ed25519, ECDSA P-256/384/521, RSA 2048+, with modern KEX and ciphers (Curve25519, ChaCha20-Poly1305, AES-GCM).
  • tmux -CC control mode for sessions that survive network drops and backgrounding.
  • Same keys, same config, same authorized_keys entries. Nothing custom on the server.
  • Optional legacy mode for OpenSSH < 6.7 and RHEL 5/6 boxes.
iosterm — teraflops@hive — 100×28

Files.app integration

Every server is a location.

Add a server once and it appears in the iOS Files app next to iCloud Drive and your iPhone. Open remote config files in Textastic. Edit git repos in Working Copy. Drop screenshots straight onto a webroot. The file provider speaks SFTP — no extra setup on the server.

  • Open, edit, save — all over SFTP.
  • Works with Textastic, Working Copy, a-Shell, Pages.
  • iOS caches nothing it shouldn't.
  • Uses the same key as the terminal.

Each server you add registers as an iOS File Provider domain, so it lives right next to iCloud Drive and Dropbox — nothing custom, nothing sideloaded.

iOS Files app Explorar view showing IOSTerm server locations (Roon and Hive) in the Ubicaciones sidebar
iPhone lock screen showing IOSTerm Live Activity with a failed docker logs command

Lock screen

iPhone home screen with IOSTerm Dynamic Island Live Activity showing a running docker logs command on the Hive server

Dynamic Island

Live Activities · Widgets · Intents

Long-running jobs on the Lock Screen.

Start a docker logs -f, tail a build, watch a cron — and keep an eye on it from the Dynamic Island, the Lock Screen, or a Home Screen widget. When the command succeeds or fails, the activity updates in place.

  • Live Activities

    Commands run in the background and post updates to Dynamic Island & Lock Screen. Success, failure, and exit code — at a glance.

  • Siri & App Intents

    "Hey Siri, restart nginx on hive." App Intents for Connect, Run Command, Healthcheck, Restart Service, and Cancel Command — donated for every server you add.

  • Home Screen widgets

    A widget per server with live healthcheck status and one-tap connect. Pin a glanceable panel of your fleet right on the Home Screen.

AI · optional

Help when you need it. Silent when you don't.

Two opt-in AI touches, both off by default. An AI Assistant drawer for context-aware help, and an on-device command generator for turning plain English into a shell command.

AI Assistant drawer

Ask about your terminal output.

Pull up the drawer from any session. Ask what an error means, get a command from a natural-language description, or paste logs for a second opinion. Tap Insert to drop a suggestion straight into your prompt.

IOSTerm AI Assistant drawer on iPad, answering 'Find files greater than 100 MB' with a find command and Insert button

Generate command · on-device AI engine

Plain English → shell command.

Describe what you want — "find files larger than 100 MB modified today" — and the on-device AI engine proposes a bash command you can inspect before running. Runs locally. Nothing leaves the phone.

IOSTerm Generate Command modal on iPad with prompt 'Describe the goal in plain language. The AI engine will propose a bash command.'

On-device

The AI engine runs locally on supported devices. Your prompts never leave the phone.

Opt-in

Both AI features ship disabled. If you never enable them, no AI traffic ever happens — the features stay dormant.

You review every command

Suggestions appear in a preview, never auto-executed. You tap Insert, read, then press Return.

Alternative icons

Pick your aesthetic.

Four alternate app icons built in. Swap them from Settings — your Home Screen will thank you.

  • Standard icon variant

    Standard

    Deep navy, cyan caret

  • Amber icon variant

    Amber

    Warm CRT, vt100 nostalgia

  • Matrix icon variant

    Matrix

    Phosphor green on black

  • Synthwave icon variant

    Synthwave

    Hot pink caret, late nights

Privacy · TL;DR

Your data goes where you send it.

IOSTerm doesn't have a backend. There's nothing for it to phone home to, no account system, no analytics SDK. The things you'd expect to stay on your device actually do.

Read the full privacy policy

  • Zero analytics

    No SDKs, no event pipelines, no crash reporters. The developer has no dashboards to look at.

  • Secrets in Keychain

    Passwords and private keys live in the iOS Keychain. iCloud Keychain syncs E2E across your Apple devices.

  • SSH traffic direct

    Your device opens a TCP socket to your server. No relay, no proxy, no "cloud sync" of sessions.

  • AI is opt-in, BYOK

    Off by default. If enabled, your device talks directly to Anthropic with your own API key.

  • iCloud is yours

    Command history and drafts sit in your private CloudKit database. The developer can't read it.

  • No account

    You never sign up for anything with the developer. There is no account to leak.

Ready when you are

Coming to the App Store.

IOSTerm 1.0 is heading into App Store review. Drop your email with the support address below and we'll let you know the moment it's live. No list, no newsletter — one email, one time.

App Store · in review Ping me on launch
Version
1.0
Devices
iPhone · iPad
Minimum
iOS 17
Pricing
One-time purchase