Straight into a Mac folder
Photos land in ~/Pictures/Beamroll/YYYY-MM-DD/. The same photo is never written twice.
An iPhone app and a Mac app
The photos you pick,in a folder on your Mac.
Never passes through a cloud. No account to sign up for.Beamroll puts the photos you choose on your iPhone straight into ~/Pictures/Beamroll/YYYY-MM-DD/ on a Mac on the same Wi-Fi.
- Free to use
- No account
- Never sends on its own
Features
From your iPhone to the Mac you work on.
Beamroll is an iPhone app and a Mac app that put iPhone photos straight into a folder on a Mac on the same Wi-Fi.
Text comes along
The iPhone reads text before sending. Photos with text also get a .txt with the same name.
Never sends on its own
Only the photos you choose, and the one shot you take with the app’s shutter.
Connect with a QR
Scan the QR shown in the Mac menu with your iPhone.
Encrypted transfer
TLS 1.2 with ECDHE_PSK. A peer with a different key is cut off at the start.
An easy transfer screen
Tap “All photos” to filter
Pick photos in a grid or a list.
“All photos” at the left of the bar above the photos is a button. Tap it and the filter sheet opens: pick a period (Today, Yesterday, This week, Last week, This month, Last month, or Pick dates), a status (Not sent / Sent) and a type (Camera / Screenshots) on the wheels, or switch to favorites only.
Once a filter is on, the button shows what it is filtering by.
How it works
Connect, choose, send.
Show the QR on the Mac
“Connect an iPhone” from Beamroll in the menu bar.
Scan it on the iPhone
“Scan the Mac’s QR”, then confirm.
Choose and send
“Choose Photos to Send”, pick them, and tap Send.
It lands on the Mac
Photos and their
.txtin~/Pictures/Beamroll/YYYY-MM-DD/.
How it connects
Inside your own Wi-Fi, locked with a key.
No cloud, and no server of ours, in between. The dashed frame is your home or office Wi-Fi (LAN).
Hand over a key with a QR
The Mac makes a 32-byte key and shows a QR holding the key and the Mac’s address. Once the iPhone scans it, it talks only to that Mac.
Find the Mac on the same Wi-Fi
When sending, the iPhone looks for the Mac by name on the same network (Bonjour), or falls back to the address in the QR. Only home and office LAN addresses are used.
Send directly, locked
The connection is encrypted with TLS 1.2 ECDHE_PSK. A device with the wrong key is cut off at the handshake, and nothing is written. With forward secrecy, past traffic stays unreadable even if the key leaks later.
Place it in a folder on the Mac
Photos land in
~/Pictures/Beamroll/year-month-day/, with a.txtof the same name when there is text. The same photo is never written twice.
If a photo’s original is only in iCloud Photos, the iPhone fetches it from Apple first, then sends it.
Privacy
Your photos stay between your iPhone and your Mac.
Photos and the text read from them go only to the Mac you connected. They are not sent to the operator’s servers.
- Nothing sent to the operator’s servers
- No analytics or advertising code
- No account sign-up
- Destinations limited to home or office LAN addresses
Pricing
Free to use. Pro, a one-time purchase, lifts the limit.
Free
¥0
- Send up to 10 photos a day
- Resets at midnight on the iPhone
One-time
Pro
¥500
In-app purchase in Japan; the App Store shows the price for your region
- No daily limit on photos sent
- Everything else is the same as Free
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
What does Beamroll do?
It puts the photos you pick on your iPhone straight into a folder on a Mac on the same Wi-Fi. You use an iPhone app and a Mac app together. Photos go directly from the iPhone to the Mac without passing through a cloud service, and there is no account to sign up for.
Where do the photos land on my Mac?
In ~/Pictures/Beamroll/YYYY-MM-DD/. The date is the day you sent the photo (by your iPhone’s calendar). The same photo is never written twice.
What is the text reading?
Before sending, the iPhone reads any text in the photo. If a photo has text, a .txt file with the same name is placed next to it in the same date folder. Photos without text get no .txt. Reading targets Japanese and English.
Will it ever send photos on its own?
No. It sends only the photos you choose on the transfer screen and the one shot you take with the app’s own shutter. There is no automatic sending in the background.
How do I connect my iPhone and Mac?
Open “Connect an iPhone” from Beamroll in the Mac menu bar to show a QR. On the iPhone, tap “Scan the Mac’s QR”, scan it, and confirm. If the iPhone cannot scan QR codes, use “Copy Invitation URL” on the Mac and paste it on the iPhone.
Is the connection encrypted?
Yes. It uses TLS 1.2 with ECDHE_PSK. The Mac creates the key and hands it to the iPhone through the QR. A peer with a different key is cut off at the start of the connection, and nothing is written. Invitations can only carry home or office LAN addresses.
What if someone else saw my QR?
Choose “New Key…” in the Mac menu. Every iPhone that was connected will need to scan the new QR.
Can I send photos stored in iCloud Photos?
Yes. If the full-size data of a photo is not on the iPhone, the iPhone first downloads it from iCloud before sending (that download is between the iPhone and Apple’s iCloud).
How much does it cost?
It is free to use. The free version sends up to 10 photos a day. Buying Pro (a one-time in-app purchase; ¥500 in Japan, and the App Store shows the price for your region) removes that limit. The limit is the only thing Pro changes; every other feature is the same as in the free version.
What if I choose more than 10 photos in a day?
Beamroll sends as many as you have left for the day, oldest first. The rest stay selected and are not sent, so you can send them tomorrow or after buying Pro. The count is the number of photos newly placed on the Mac (resending a photo the Mac already has doesn’t count, nor do the text .txt files), and it resets at midnight in the iPhone’s time zone.
What do I need?
An iPhone with iOS 17.0 or later and a Mac with macOS 14.0 or later, connected to the same network (Wi-Fi). The app is available in English and Japanese.
Get it
The photos you pick,
in a folder on your Mac.
iPhone (App Store) Coming soonMac Coming soon