A native macOS menu-bar remote for Fire TV, Android / Google TV, Samsung Tizen, LG webOS, and Roku. Open the TV icon in the menu bar to control a TV on your local network.
- Automatic discovery and remembered TVs: Bonjour and SSDP find TVs on your local network. Known devices appear immediately at startup. Fire TV service changes and multiple discovery protocols merge into one entry; existing duplicates are cleaned up while keeping pairing credentials, custom names, and the selected TV. The picker separates Discovered on this network from Saved · not currently discovered, so remembered devices are not presented as current discoveries. Discovery refreshes periodically; SSDP sightings expire after 45 seconds without a new reply.
- Automatic connection: restores the last selected, already paired TV at launch and follows discovery updates when its IP address changes. A single paired TV can be selected automatically. New TVs require an explicit selection to begin pairing.
- Live connection status: Fire TV and Roku use read-only checks every three seconds with a two-second request timeout. They recover automatically when the service returns. Other brands report control-channel failures and retry previously paired connections. Reconnect appears only while disconnected or after a connection failure.
- Full remote: power, a ring direction pad with OK, back/home/menu, play/pause, rewind/fast-forward, skip controls, volume, and mute.
- Text input: type in the remote's field and press Return to send text to the focused input on your TV.
- App shortcuts: common apps appear immediately; Fire TV, Roku, and LG fetch installed apps, while Samsung checks its supported app catalog. Expand the shortcut row to browse more apps. Android TV uses a curated list of deep links.
- Keyboard shortcuts: while the remote is open and its text field is not focused, arrows navigate; Return selects; Escape/Delete go back; Space plays/pauses;
hopens Home;mmutes;+/-adjust volume. Remote buttons flash when a keyboard shortcut fires. System media keys continue to control your Mac. - Device management: rename TVs, clear a nickname, re-pair, forget a TV, or add one manually by IP address or hostname. TV selection, settings, pairing, rename, and add-TV forms all stay inside the remote window; no separate dropdown panels or dialogs are used.
- Launch at Login: enable it from the settings panel.
- Native macOS menu-bar window with system-managed background, corners, and appearance. Controls adapt to light and dark mode, and the header stays pinned when the app list expands. The panel fits its screen, scrolls long content, and shrinks to a centered pairing card during re-pairing. App expansion and collapse retain one content tree and update the window frame in one step. No cloud account or ADB required.
Download Universal.TV.Remote.for.Mac.dmg from Releases, open it, drag Universal TV Remote.app into Applications, and right-click → Open on the first launch. Requires macOS 14 or later. The app is ad-hoc signed, not notarized.
Allow local network access when macOS asks. If discovery is blocked, enable it in System Settings → Privacy & Security → Local Network. Your Mac and TV should normally be on the same network; use Add TV by IP… when automatic discovery cannot reach the TV.
Select a TV to pair. Fire TV shows a four-digit PIN; Android TV shows a six-character code. Samsung and LG show an Allow/Deny prompt on the TV. Roku does not require pairing. Credentials are remembered for later use.
“Connected” means the TV's remote service is reachable, rather than a measurement of the display's power state. A separately powered Fire TV Stick can remain reachable when its attached television is off. Fire TV and Roku status changes normally appear within a few seconds of a service becoming unreachable, subject to system sleep and network delays. Fire TV can take up to about seven seconds when a failed remote check is followed by the read-only DIAL service check.
Automatic connection, monitoring, and Fire TV reconnection do not send wake commands. Use the power button explicitly to wake or sleep the TV. An unavailable TV stays disconnected with a Reconnect button. A revoked Fire TV token requires Settings → Re-pair.
If a Fire TV is on but cannot connect, the app reads its DIAL service status. When FireTVRemote is stopped, it explains that the remote service needs to be started. The power button explicitly starts/wakes that service; background checks and Reconnect never start it automatically.
| Brand | Protocol | Pairing | Power-on |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fire TV | Local REST API (8080) |
Four-digit PIN | DIAL wake (8009) |
| Android / Google TV | Remote v2 TLS (6466 / 6467) |
Six-character code | Protocol power key |
| Samsung Tizen | WebSocket (8002) |
Allow on TV | Wake-on-LAN with a cached MAC |
| LG webOS | SSAP WebSocket (3001) |
Allow on TV | Wake-on-LAN with a cached MAC |
| Roku | ECP REST (8060, or advertised port) |
None | ECP / fast-start |
- Fire TV supports Bonjour and Amazon-confirmed DIAL discovery. Some old firmware lacks the local remote API. The power button toggles sleep/wake based on remote-service reachability.
- Roku OS 14.1+ may require Settings → System → Advanced system settings → Control by mobile apps → Enabled.
- Samsung, LG, and Roku drivers have not been verified on physical hardware by the developer. Available controls and power behavior vary by model.
- Android TV text input sends characters individually; uppercase and some unusual characters are skipped.
- App-list queries vary by firmware. A static catalog is used when an installed-app endpoint is unavailable.
Requires Xcode command-line tools with Swift 5.9 or later. The Android TV protocol dependency is vendored locally under Vendor/AndroidTVRemoteControl.
git clone https://github.com/devasheeshG/universal-tv-remote-macos.git
cd universal-tv-remote-macos
bash scripts/build-app.sh "$(cat VERSION)"
bash scripts/package-dmg.shThe app bundle is written to build/Universal TV Remote.app; the installable disk image is build/Universal.TV.Remote.for.Mac.dmg. The project has no automated test suite.
GitHub Actions builds the app on a macOS runner and packages the .app in a DMG. It uses the version in VERSION for pushes to main, or the version in a v* tag. The workflow also supports manual dispatch.
Before publishing, write the release's notes in .docs/releases/, named v<version>.md, and update VERSION. The release workflow requires that file and publishes its contents as the release body. It does not run tests or generate notes from commit messages. See release.yml.
App.swift owns the menu-bar interface and selection restoration; Discovery.swift handles discovery, identity merging, and remembered-device migration. TVController.swift defines device models, session state, credential storage, reconnect handling, and the shared driver protocol. Each brand has its own driver file.
MIT. The vendored AndroidTVRemoteControl library is MIT, © Roman Odyshew.