Remote access

AI apps · Updated 2026-11-01

Ask ChatGPT or Claude about your latest bug report from your phone, or another computer. Remote access gives your library a private address that AI apps can connect to. Each request travels through illuminate to your Mac and is answered there.

Remote access is part of Pro. It works while your Mac is awake with illuminate open.

Turn it on

1. Open illuminate's Settings → Remote Access and turn on Remote access.
2. Press Copy next to your address. It looks like https://mcp.illu.mov/u/…/mcp. Keep it private, like a password.

Connect an AI app

ChatGPT: Settings → Connectors → Create, and paste the address.

Claude: Settings → Connectors → Add custom connector, and paste the address.

Cursor and others: add the address as a remote MCP server.

Then:

1. Sign in with illuminate when the app asks, and press Allow.
2. Allow it on your Mac too. illuminate shows "ChatGPT wants to read your illuminate library" in Settings → Remote Access. Press Allow.

Both steps are on purpose: signing in proves it's you, and the Mac's Allow means nothing reaches your library without the Mac agreeing.

See and revoke apps

• On your Mac: Settings → Remote Access lists the apps you've allowed and what they asked for recently.
• On the web: your account at account.illu.mov shows whether your Mac is online, your address and your apps, even while the Mac is off.

Revoke stops one app at once. Revoke all stops every app and gives you a new address; add it again to the apps you still want.

Privacy

• Read-only. AI apps can read sessions, reports and evidence. They can't record, delete, share or change anything.
• Encrypted in transit; illuminate stores nothing. Requests and answers pass through illuminate's relay without being kept. The relay keeps only a count of requests per app, for limits.
• Only your Mac answers. If it's asleep, or illuminate isn't open, apps get "Your Mac is asleep or illuminate isn't open."

If it doesn't work

• "Your Mac is asleep or illuminate isn't open": wake the Mac and open illuminate. Remote access reconnects by itself.
• "Allow this app in illuminate for Mac": the app is waiting for the Mac's Allow, in Settings → Remote Access.
• The app can't connect after "Revoke all": your address changed. Copy the new one into the app.
• One Mac per account: turning on remote access on another Mac moves it there.
• Limits: each request has 30 seconds and up to 4 MB, and an app can make 60 requests a minute.