Common questions about the SSH terminal for iPhone and iPad.
No subscription, no in-app purchases, no account required. Current price is shown on the App Store listing.
Yes. Universal iOS app, iOS 17 and later. The iPad Pro layout has centred toolbar controls and supports Magic Keyboard trackpad scrolling.
Yes. SSH into the Mac Mini from your iPhone or iPad, attach to the tmux session running Claude Code, Codex, Cursor background agents, Aider, or Cline, and interact with the agent from the terminal.
Yes. Single-finger scroll through tmux scrollback without entering copy mode. Shift-Tab, Esc, Ctrl-C, arrow keys, and a dedicated tmux detach button are always visible on the toolbar.
In the iOS Keychain on-device only, protected by the Secure Enclave. Passwords do not sync via iCloud. Connection metadata (hostnames, usernames, ports) syncs via CloudKit; credentials do not.
TOFU (Trust On First Use). The first time you connect to a host, ShellDrop pins its public key fingerprint. If the key changes on a later connection, ShellDrop blocks the session and surfaces the mismatch.
An opt-in toolbar button added in v3.1.4 that sends a user-configured command string over the current SSH session with a single tap. Useful for firing strings like update memory at a running coding agent (for example, MemPalace on Claude Code) without typing on a phone keyboard. Off by default.
Password authentication is supported today. Public-key authentication is on the roadmap.
Yes. Saved connections sync via iCloud CloudKit. Passwords stay on-device. No third-party cloud involved.
Yes. Opt-in background persistence uses iOS location services to keep the SSH connection alive when you switch apps or lock the phone. Off by default. Toggle in Settings > Session Persistence.
ShellDrop is a standard SSH client. MoshDrop was a separate Mosh protocol client for session persistence across network changes; it was discontinued in April 2026. ShellDrop covers the core SSH workflow and uses its own background keep-alive instead of Mosh.
Yes. Long-press and drag to select. Tappable URL detection surfaces links from terminal output automatically.
Yes. Hardware keyboard input is supported. On iPad, the Magic Keyboard trackpad scrolls the terminal (including tmux scrollback) with standard two-finger gestures.
No analytics, no telemetry, no third-party SDKs. Connection data stays between your device and your server. See the privacy policy for details.
ShellDrop is on the App Store. Universal iPhone and iPad, iOS 17+.