For macOS & Linux · menu bar · Omarchy bar widget
SharpDesk resizes the machine you're viewing — a Mac or a Linux box — to exactly match your screen, or your remote desktop tool's viewer. Automatically. No more scaled, smudged sessions.
Free. No licence, no trial, no card — sign in with your email.
macOS 15+ · Linux agent for Hyprland, Omarchy and Xorg · works with any remote desktop tool, including Screens 5, Apple Screen Sharing, VNC and others
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How it works
When you connect to another machine, its display rarely fits what you're looking through, whether that's your full screen or a remote desktop tool's window. So everything gets scaled, and scaled pixels are blurry pixels. SharpDesk fixes the mismatch at the source.
Enter your email, get a code. Your machines find each other — no IP addresses, no network setup, works anywhere on the internet.
Any remote desktop tool works — Screens 5, Apple Screen Sharing, VNC, RustDesk, Jump Desktop and more. SharpDesk watches the window, not the pixels — and with auto-sharpen on, it spots the session and picks the right machine for you.
The remote machine's display is resized to exactly fit your view — full screen or windowed — and follows as you resize. Close the session and it restores itself.
Why it matters
The remote display is recreated at your window's native resolution, HiDPI included. Text renders like it's local.
No fiddling with display settings on the far machine. With auto-sharpen on, opening your viewer is the whole workflow — SharpDesk works out which machine and matches it. Resize your window, the display follows. Walk away, it cleans up after itself.
Sign in with the same account on each machine and they see each other — home, office, another country. Nothing to configure.
Every machine is a device on your account. See them all, revoke any of them, one click. Pin a window, switch extend/mirror, restore anytime.
Control requires authenticated per-device keys and is encrypted between your machines. The relay handles routing metadata and ciphertext; your pixels never touch it.
Reset Displays remains available on the Mac itself, so you can restore its physical screens without relying on the remote connection.
The app
SharpDesk lives in your menu bar and stays out of the way. Open it and you see exactly what's happening: which Mac is discoverable, which session is being sharpened, at what resolution.
What you get
Free · everything built in
Free · every Mac you own · all updates included
No licence, no trial, no card. Sign in with your email and it works.
sharpdesk:// URLsThe free agent turns a Linux box into a machine you can sharpen. On Hyprland and Omarchy it builds a real virtual display for Extend and mirrors the Mac way; on Xorg it resizes the real output. The Omarchy plugin puts the panel in your bar, so you can sharpen or restore any machine on your account without leaving it. Set up Linux →
The SharpDesk iOS app matches a Mac to your iPad or iPhone screen with one tap — perfect for Screens on the sofa.
FAQ
No — it makes them better. Your viewer app keeps doing the viewing; SharpDesk fixes the resolution mismatch that makes those sessions blurry.
While a session is active, the remote Mac gets a virtual display sized exactly to your window (optionally blacking out its physical screen). When you close your viewer window, everything is restored — automatically.
Yes — install it on the Mac you're sitting at and the Mac you're connecting to, and sign in with the same email on both. That's the whole setup.
Yes, and it's free — there's no licence or trial gate on Linux hosting. Install the SharpDesk agent on the Linux box, sign in with the same email, and it appears in your panel alongside your Macs. Hyprland and Omarchy get the full treatment (virtual displays for Extend, Mac-style mirroring for Mirror); Xorg mirrors by resizing its real output. See the Linux agent guide.
Your screen's pixels never touch SharpDesk — they stay inside your viewer app. Control requires an authenticated key for each device and is encrypted between them. The relay sees the routing and presence metadata needed to connect your devices and carries the encrypted command frames.
Not in the current beta. Direct LAN is temporarily disabled while its authentication is upgraded, so SharpDesk currently requires its normal internet relay. Update both Macs and do not enable Direct LAN on an older beta. It will return only after it passes the same authenticated-control checks as the relay.
Use Standard mode with SharpDesk. High Performance mode runs its own virtual display on the remote Mac — Apple's version of the same trick — and macOS refuses a second one, so SharpDesk can't create its screen while an HP session is active. (In HP mode you arguably don't need SharpDesk; in Standard mode and every other viewer, you do.)
Yes — SharpDesk has a URL API: sharpdesk://apply?width=1512&height=982 from any app, Shortcut, or script shapes the remote screen to an exact size. See the automation docs.
macOS 15 and later, Apple Silicon and Intel.
Lite was the free version back when SharpDesk was paid. SharpDesk itself is free now, has its own display engine, and needs nothing else installed — so Lite has no advantage left for most people. It still exists for anyone who wants a direct connection with no account, driving BetterDisplay on the remote Mac; see the docs.