Apple continues to make using your iPhone with your Mac even easier with Continuity. Launched with macOS Ventura, Continuity lets you use your iPhone as a webcam for your Mac. It also offers a universal clipboard across devices, call and text synchronization, AirPlay streaming - and now the ability to mirror your iPhone's display to a screen connected to your Mac.

If you have an iPhone running iOS 18 or later and a Mac with an Apple chip or T2 Security Chip running macOS Sequoia 15 or later, you can use iPhone mirroring. It's exactly what it sounds like: a live copy of your movements displayed on your computer display, which you can also interact with. Mirroring means you can check apps and messages while your phone is in your pocket or drawer - and of course, you get the benefits of keyboard and mouse (or trackpad) control.

The setting method is as follows. I tried it on an iPhone 15 Pro Max running iOS 18.2.1 and an M1 MacBook Pro running macOS Sequoia 15.2.

In addition to the software requirements we've already mentioned (iOS 18 and macOS 15), there are a few checks that need to be performed to make this work. Both iPhone and Mac need to be logged into the same Apple account, and that account needs to have two-factor authentication enabled.

Both devices need to have Bluetooth and Wi-Fi turned on, and your iPhone needs to be locked and close to your Mac. It doesn't matter whether either device is charging or not, and the feature works regardless of whether your iPhone is in standby mode. Macs may not use Sidecar or AirPlay to share their Internet connection.

With all of these fairly simple criteria met, iPhone Mirroring is ready to go.

• Look for the iPhone Mirror button on the macOS dock, which looks like a smaller iPhone. Click this button and the connection should be established - although the first time you use iPhone mirroring, you'll be asked to verify the connection via Face ID, Touch ID, or PIN on your iPhone.
• Move the cursor on your Mac over the mirrored iPhone screen to get the borders. You can click and drag this border to reposition the iPhone display.

• In the upper right corner there are icons for returning to the home screen (a grid of squares) and app switching (a series of rectangles) where recent apps can be found.
• Anything you do on your Mac applies to your iPhone, so you can open apps, browse the web, change iOS settings, reply to messages, and more. Any audio played on your iPhone will be routed through your Mac speakers.

You may find it takes some time to get used to using your trackpad (or mouse) and keyboard to operate your iPhone—it's all clicks and drags, rather than taps and swipes. Clicking is equivalent to tapping, and clicking and dragging is equivalent to sliding.

There are some keyboard shortcuts that can help.

• Command +1 Takes you to the home screen.
• Command+2 Takes you to the application switcher.
• Command+3 Launch Spotlight search (you can also swipe up from the bottom of any home screen to enter Spotlight).

Open view The menu on the top menu bar changes the size of your mirrored iPhone display: you can choose big, actual sizeand smaller.

You can also drag and drop items from iPhone to Mac and vice versa. For example, try opening the Photos app on a mirrored iPhone and dragging an image to your macOS desktop, or dragging an image from Safari on your desktop to Mail on your mobile device.

You have several options when it comes to how to manage iPhone notifications during mirroring. By default, iPhone notifications become Mac notifications and appear in the upper right corner of the macOS interface - clearing notifications on your Mac will also clear notifications on your iPhone. You can change this setting:

• On macOS, open apple then menu System settings.
• choose notify.
• choose Allow notifications from iPhone.
• use Allow notifications from iPhone and Play notification sounds from iPhone Toggle the switch to change how alerts are handled.
• There are also toggle switches for individual apps on the same screen, so you can allow notifications from some apps (like WhatsApp) but not others (like Uber).

To control future connections:

• Open iPhone mirroring On macOS with the iPhone display active, go to the menu at the top of the screen and select set up.
• The next dialog box allows you to automatically connect these devices in the future or require authentication each time.
• You can also interrupt the connection by clicking revoke accesswhich means that it will need to be rebuilt from scratch in the future.

To stop iPhone mirroring, close the iPhone Mirroring app (via the red close button in the upper left corner or the iPhone Mirroring menu) or unlock your iPhone.