Control Your Local Claude Code from Your Phone

I started a migration at my desk, told Claude to keep going, and moved to the couch. On my phone, the same session — same conversation, same local files, same MCP servers — was right there in the Claude app. I approved two edits and sent the next instruction from the sofa.
The feature is called Remote Control, and the key detail is that nothing moves to the cloud. Claude keeps running on your machine; your phone is just a window into it.

Key Takeaways

• claude remote-control makes a local session reachable from claude.ai/code or the Claude mobile app
• Your full local environment stays available: filesystem, MCP servers, project config
• The conversation syncs across devices — type from terminal, browser, or phone interchangeably
• Scan a QR code to open the session on your phone (press spacebar to show it)
• Push notifications tell you when Claude finishes or needs a decision

Three ways to start

Server mode — a standing host that waits for connections:

claude remote-control
A normal session, also reachable remotely:
claude --remote-control "My Project"
Mid-session, when you realize you need to leave but the task isn't done:
/remote-control
That last one is the move I use most. It carries the current conversation over and prints a URL + QR code. Scan, walk away, keep working.

How this differs from Claude Code on the web

Both use the claude.ai/code interface, which confuses people. The difference is where Claude runs:

• Remote Control: on your machine. Local files, local MCP servers, uncommitted changes — all available. Your machine must stay on.
• Web (cloud) sessions: on Anthropic's infrastructure. Zero local access, but survives your laptop being closed.
  Rule of thumb: mid-task and stepping away → Remote Control. Starting fresh on a clean repo → cloud session.

Setup notes from actually using it

💡 Typing @ on your phone autocompletes file paths from your local project. The remote interface is a real window, not a dumbed-down chat.
💡 Enable push notifications: install the Claude app, sign in with the same account, then run /config in the terminal and turn on "Push when Claude decides". You can also just ask: "notify me when the tests finish."
💡 Want every session remotely reachable without typing the flag? /config → "Enable Remote Control for all sessions".
⚠️ 🔍 From the docs: the session requires a claude.ai subscription login — API keys don't work. If ANTHROPIC_API_KEY is set in your shell, unset it first; it silently takes precedence and produces a confusing eligibility error.
⚠️ 🔍 From the docs: if your machine loses network for more than ~10 minutes, the session times out and exits. Laptop sleep is fine — it reconnects — but a long outage means restarting.

What it can't do

❌ The local process must stay alive. Close the terminal, kill VS Code, shut the lid permanently — session over. This is remote control, not remote hosting.
❌ Interactive picker commands (/mcp, /resume, /plugin) are local-only. Text-output commands like /compact and /usage work fine from the phone.
❌ One remote session per interactive process. For multiple concurrent sessions, use server mode.

The bigger picture

There's a whole spectrum now: Dispatch (message a task from your phone, Desktop spawns a session), Remote Control (steer in-progress local work), cloud sessions (no machine needed), and routines (no human needed). Remote Control fills the specific gap of "the task is half done on this machine and I don't want to sit here."
Docs: Remote Control.