Open source · MIT license
Telepad turns an Android phone into a trackpad, keyboard and media remote for Windows, Linux and macOS, over Wi‑Fi or Bluetooth. End-to-end encrypted. No account, no cloud.
How it works
No account to create and no cloud in between. Your phone talks straight to your PC.
Run the installer (or open the app on a Mac). Telepad sits in your tray and shows a QR code. It can start with your computer, so it is always there.
Open the app and tap Scan QR code. The code holds your PC’s key, so there is nothing to type and nothing to compare.
You are paired, and from then on the phone just connects. No account, no password, and what you do stays on your network.
Features
And a few things you can only do with a phone.
Tap to click, two fingers to scroll, tap and drag to select, press and hold for a right click, three fingers for a middle click. The pad shows what it understood, so you learn it by using it.
Type with your phone’s own keyboard, autocorrect and all. Telepad works out the exact keystrokes that give your PC the same text. For everything a phone keyboard lacks, there is a row of real keys.
Play, pause and skip. Turn the volume up or down, and hold the button to keep going. Use the phone as a slide clicker, or jump straight to show desktop, task view, a screenshot or the lock screen.
Wi‑Fi gives you everything, including the clipboard. Bluetooth makes your phone a standard keyboard and mouse, so the PC needs no app at all.
If the Wi‑Fi hiccups, Telepad notices and reconnects quietly, and tells you why if it can’t. You can also keep it connected in the background.
Material 3, light and dark, in an accent you choose or your wallpaper’s colors. Built for phones, tablets and landscape.
Works with TalkBack, large text and reduced motion. Text and icon colors are tested against WCAG contrast.
A closer look
Security
What you type controls your computer, so Telepad treats it that way.
The Noise protocol with X25519 and ChaCha20-Poly1305. Nothing on your network can read your typing, change it or play it back.
The QR code on your PC’s screen carries the PC’s key, so a fake PC cannot take its place. (Without a camera, compare the 80-bit fingerprint on both screens instead.) If a PC ever answers with a different key, the app warns you instead of connecting.
A phone can control the PC only after it scans a code your PC shows. The code works for one phone, once, for five minutes.
No account, no cloud, no analytics, no ads. Your input goes to your PC and nowhere else. The only thing Telepad asks the internet is whether a newer version exists.
It also lists what Telepad does not protect against.
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Download
Two small pieces: the app for your phone and Telepad for your computer. Bluetooth mode needs only the app. This is an alpha: it works, but it is new, so expect rough edges, and please tell us what you find.
Allow installs from your browser when Android asks.
Windows may say it does not know the app yet: More info, then Run anyway. Or run it without installing.
curl -fsSL https://telepad-app.vercel.app/install.sh | sh
Download .deb
Run the command, or download a package: .rpm (Fedora), Arch, .tar.gz. It sets up the permission Telepad needs to type.
Not notarized yet, so macOS asks once. How to open it.
Every file is listed with its SHA-256 in SHA256SUMS, and GitHub can prove which build made it (how to check). A server for PCs without a desktop is on the releases page. Prefer to build it yourself? Build from source or see all releases.
Open source
MIT licensed. The app is Kotlin and Jetpack Compose, the desktop app is Rust, and both live in one repository. The app’s networking tests run a real encrypted handshake against a stand-in PC that speaks the real protocol, and every screen is rendered by a test.
FAQ
For Wi‑Fi mode, yes: Telepad for your computer, a small app that sits in the tray (the menu bar on a Mac) and can start with your computer. Bluetooth mode needs nothing on the PC: your phone shows up as a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse.
Telepad is made for a trusted local network: your phone and your PC on the same Wi‑Fi, or paired over Bluetooth. It is not meant to be reachable from the internet, and you should not forward its port.
It goes straight to your PC, encrypted. There is no server in between, and nothing is sent to the developers or anyone else. The app has no analytics, ads or accounts. The one thing it asks the internet is GitHub’s public list of releases, once a day, to tell you when a newer version exists; that request carries no identifier, and you can switch it off.
Once a phone is paired, other devices on the network can’t type on your PC, and they can’t read what you send. Do your first pairing on a network you trust, because that is the moment your PC lets a new phone in. Some public networks stop devices from seeing each other. Bluetooth works there.
The phone must run Android 9 or later. The PC can run Windows 10 or 11, Linux (X11 and Wayland, through the kernel’s uinput) or macOS 11 and later. The Windows and macOS versions are built and tested on every change, but have had less hands-on testing than Linux, so please tell us if anything is odd.
Not at the moment. Telepad is Android only.
Not yet. Download the signed APK from the GitHub releases. Every file is listed with its checksum, and has a build attestation that shows it was built from this repository.
Try it and tell us what you find. Bug reports, ideas, translations and patches are all welcome, and the contributing guide explains how to build and test both halves.
Free, open source and private. Set up in about a minute.