Hostbeam is free to try for as long as you like. If you keep using it, please buy a license. No subscription, no account.
Free
$0for as long as you like
License
$29once, if you keep using it
Your key arrives by email right after checkout. Paste it into Hostbeam on your Mac and the reminder is gone.
In /tmp/hostbeam on the host you pick, by default. You can set a different folder per host, and the Storage view shows what Hostbeam has left there, with a one-click clean-up that only ever touches files Hostbeam named.
Yes. On the Mac, copy a file in Finder and press the shortcut, or drop it on the popover or the menu-bar icon; on the iPhone, share it to Hostbeam. It lands in the same folder, up to 100 MB a file, and its path is on your clipboard. Anything that looks like a secret, such as a .env or a private key, waits for you to confirm. Folders aren't sent.
No. Hostbeam uses the hosts already in your ~/.ssh/config and your existing keys. There's nothing to sign up for.
Anything you can ssh into: entries from your ~/.ssh/config, or a host you type in by hand. If ssh works, Hostbeam works.
It is scp. Hostbeam runs your system ssh and scp with your own config, then handles the parts a one-liner usually doesn't: the host key is checked before anything sends, a remote name never overwrites a file, your clipboard is untouched if a beam fails, and a batch that stops halfway tells you which files landed. The iPhone has no scp to run, so the app does the same work there.
The Mac app shows a QR for any host; the phone scans it and generates its own SSH key, which never leaves the phone. You authorize that key through access you already have — once per host, though only the first is manual: after that your Mac remembers the phone and adds it to the next host in a click. Hostbeam inherits your access; it never creates it.
Pick your favorite: the share sheet from any screenshot, a Home Screen widget that beams your latest screenshot in one tap, or the “Beam last screenshot” shortcut. The shortcut beams in the background without opening the app, and works with Back Tap (double-tap the back of your phone), Control Center, and the Action Button.
The picture. Hostbeam copies the file's path on your server, and when you paste a path to an image, Claude Code, Codex, Gemini CLI and OpenCode attach the image itself, just as they do on your own machine. Several screenshots at once attach as several pictures in Claude Code and Gemini CLI; Codex and OpenCode take one at a time and see the rest as paths they can still open.
Yes, in settings on either app: add a sentence around the {path} token, such as “Use this screenshot: {path}”. With words around it, most agents see a line of text rather than the picture, so it's off by default.
Yes, with Hostbeam's MCP server installed on the host. The agent asks it for your latest beam and gets the image itself. It only reads the screenshots Hostbeam beamed to that folder, and it never changes anything. It's free, open source and one command to set up.
Hostbeam tells you why in plain language (host unreachable, key refused, folder not writable) and offers a retry or inline diagnostics. Your clipboard is never touched on failure.
Yes: every feature, with no limit, on the Mac and the iPhone, for as long as you like. After the first week, the Mac asks now and then, just after a beam lands, whether you'd like a license. It never blocks or slows a beam, and the count behind it stays on your Mac. If you keep using Hostbeam, please buy one.
It hides the reminder on up to 3 Macs and supports development. It's $29, once, with every Hostbeam 1 update included. No subscription, no account.
There's nothing to cover: the iPhone app is free, with no in-app purchase and no reminder. The license is for the Mac.
No. Every Hostbeam 1 update is included, however long it runs. If there is ever a Hostbeam 2, it will be a discounted upgrade — and until you upgrade, Hostbeam 2 just shows the reminder. Nothing you paid for stops working.
What you beam, to your host, over your SSH. A licensed Mac also checks its key quietly with the license service. That's the whole list: no analytics, no crash reporters, no phone-home.