The Mac is across the room
It’s plugged into the projector by the wall. Every pause means getting up, finding the trackpad in the dark and squinting at a tiny control bar.
Kinrox: tap pause on the phone in your hand.
Free & open source · Mac + iPhone
Stop getting up to pause the movie.
Kinrox plays any video on your Mac — and turns your iPhone into its remote. MacBook on the projector, you on the couch: pause, jump back 10 seconds, turn the volume down or start the next episode without leaving the blanket.
Sound familiar?
Movie night shouldn’t need a trip to the keyboard.
The volume is always wrong
Whispers in one scene, explosions in the next — and someone is already asleep in the next room.
Kinrox: a volume slider right under your thumb.
“Remote” apps are a chore
Web panels with IP addresses and passwords, a browser tab that falls asleep, buttons made for a desk — not for a couch.
Kinrox: finds your Mac by itself, pairs with one code.
iPhone remote
A remote made for a dark room.
Big targets, a dark warm theme and a light tap of haptics under every press. You can use it without looking away from the film.
One huge play button
Every control is large enough to hit half‑asleep.
Jump ±10 s and ±30 s
Missed a line? One tap back. Skip the intro with two.
Volume in your hand
Kinrox’s own volume, from 0 to 100. The Mac’s system volume stays untouched.
Next episode
Previous and next file from the same folder, in Finder order.
Recent files
Pick something you watched before — it opens on the Mac.
Scrub and fullscreen
Drag the timeline to any moment, switch fullscreen from the couch.
Pairing
Connected in ten seconds. Once.
No IP addresses, no passwords, no account. After the first code your iPhone reconnects by itself.
Open a video on your Mac
Drag a file into Kinrox or press ⌘ O. The remote server is on by default.
Pick your Mac on the iPhone
Kinrox shows up on its own when both devices are on the same Wi‑Fi.
Type the 6‑digit code
The Mac shows a code that lives for two minutes. Three wrong tries and it’s gone.
Remote Connection
Alex’s iPhone wants to control Kinrox. Enter this code on your phone.
482913
Code expires in 1:47Reject
Mac player
A player that gets out of the way.
The video is the interface. A thin layer of glass appears when you need it and hides after three seconds.
Ember Dusk.mkv3 of 12 · Movies
Controlled by Alex’s iPhone
1:08:24
0:42:15
−1:15:48
MKVMP4M4VMOVAVIWebMTS
Plays almost anything
Built on libmpv, the engine behind mpv and IINA. Embedded subtitles show up on their own, VideoToolbox does the decoding.
Ready for a series
Kinrox lines up the videos in the folder and starts the next one when an episode ends — “2” before “10”, like Finder.
Media keys just work
Keyboard ⏯ keys, Control Center and Now Playing control Kinrox. Up to 20 recent files wait on the start screen.
Space pause
←→ 5 s
⇧←→ 30 s
↑↓ volume
⌘←→ previous / next file
F fullscreen
Privacy
What happens in your living room stays there.
Kinrox has no servers. Your Mac and your iPhone talk to each other directly — and only to each other.
Local network only
Discovery over Bonjour, connections only from your own subnet. Public addresses and cellular are refused.
Encrypted and paired
Every command travels in an encrypted channel. Pairing tokens live in the Keychain on both devices.
X25519HKDF-SHA256ChaCha20-Poly1305No accounts, no telemetry
Nothing to sign up for and nothing phoning home. This website has no analytics or cookies either.
Your files stay on the Mac
The remote sees titles and durations, never file paths. Opening a recent file is resolved on the Mac.
Open source · GPL‑3.0
Free. Open. Yours to read and change.
Kinrox is written in Swift 6 and SwiftUI on top of libmpv. Every line of the player, the remote and the protocol is on GitHub.
- Mac player — works
- iPhone remote — works
- Signed DMG for Mac — in progress
- Remote on the App Store — planned
Build from source# Xcode 26.5, XcodeGen and mpv from Homebrew
brew install xcodegen mpv pkg-config
git clone https://github.com/awaik/Kinrox.git
cd Kinrox
cp -n Config/Signing.local.xcconfig.example \
Config/Signing.local.xcconfig
# Set your team: docs/runbooks/RUNBOOK-BUILD-AND-SIGNING.md
./Scripts/check-env.sh
./Scripts/generate.sh
xcodebuild -workspace Kinrox.xcworkspace \
-scheme PlayerMac -configuration Debug \
-destination 'platform=macOS,arch=arm64' \
-derivedDataPath DerivedData build
open DerivedData/Build/Products/Debug/Kinrox.app
FAQ
Questions
Does it need the internet?
No. The Mac and the iPhone only need to be on the same Wi‑Fi network. Kinrox never talks to the internet.
Does it work with a TV, not a projector?
Yes. Kinrox plays on whatever your Mac shows — a projector, a TV over HDMI, or a display connected with AirPlay.
Which Macs and iPhones are supported?
Macs with Apple silicon on macOS 14 Sonoma or later, and iPhones on iOS 17 or later. Intel Macs are not supported yet.
Can more than one iPhone control the same Mac?
Yes. Each iPhone pairs once with its own code; up to four remotes can be connected at the same time. You can revoke any of them in the player settings.
Can I pick audio and subtitle tracks?
Embedded default subtitles appear automatically. Track pickers are not part of the first version — Kinrox stays deliberately simple.
How much does it cost?
Nothing. Kinrox is free and open source under the GNU GPL v3.
Lie down. Press play.
Kinrox for Mac and iPhone. Free, open source, and made for movie nights.