KinroxThe 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 for personal use · 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. Choose embedded or external audio and subtitles. VideoToolbox handles hardware 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
Spotify
Spotify without the heavy desktop app.
Native SwiftUI music mode uses up to 200 MB of memory — 2 to 10× less than Spotify itself, whose desktop client can take up to 2 GB. Keep Spotify.app completely closed.
Up to 200 MB instead of 2 GB
No embedded browser runtime: native SwiftUI views and a lightweight audio engine use a fraction of the memory of the desktop Spotify client.
Plays with Spotify.app closed
Browse your library, albums, playlists and search, manage favorites with ⌘Z undo, and play your local queue directly in Kinrox with Spotify.app quit.
Same iPhone remote
Skip tracks, browse the queue, adjust volume and toggle favorites from the couch over your encrypted local network.
Privacy
What happens in your living room stays there.
Your Mac and iPhone exchange playback commands directly over your local network. Your videos stay on the Mac.
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 usage analytics
Kinrox plays local videos on Mac and provides an iPhone remote. The developer receives no personal data, playback history or usage analytics. Local video and LAN remote control work offline. Updates and optional Spotify need internet.
Your files stay on the Mac
The remote sees titles and durations, never file paths. Opening a recent file is resolved on the Mac.
Mac: GPL-3.0 · iPhone: Personal use only
Source code
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 — build from source
- Mac v0.5.5 — signed and notarized DMG
- 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?
Local video and LAN remote control work offline. Updates and optional Spotify need 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?
Yes. On Mac, use the Audio & Subtitles button or the Audio and Subtitles menus. Choose embedded tracks, find external files in nested folders, or turn subtitles off. Kinrox can remember your choice for the next episode.
How much does it cost?
Kinrox for Mac is open-source software licensed under the GNU GPL v3. Kinrox Remote is free for personal, noncommercial use. Business use, sales, and paid subscriptions are prohibited. Earlier GPL versions retain their original license.