The SSH terminal for your cyberdeck.

DeckTerm turns an iPhone and any hardware keyboard into a pocket SSH terminal. Built for landscape, driven from the keyboard.

Coming soon to the App Store

Support and questions

Free, with an optional tip jar. For iPhone with iOS 17 or later.

DeckTerm in landscape: a shell session fills the screen, with a thin row of keys along the bottom.

Built for any deck

If there is an iPhone and a hardware keyboard in front of you, it is a deck. A 3D-printed shell, a phone stand behind a mechanical board, a folding travel keyboard: Bluetooth or wired, any keyboard iOS supports. DeckTerm runs in landscape only, the way a deck holds the phone.

A red and black 3D-printed clamshell deck, open on a wooden table: an iPhone in the lid shows a terminal, a compact keyboard sits in the base. — A 3D-printed clamshell for an iPhone 12 mini and a Torima M7 mini Bluetooth keyboard.

A flat red one-piece slate on a wooden table, holding an iPhone above a compact keyboard, with a terminal on the screen. — A one-piece slate around the same phone and keyboard.

These two are the developer's own decks. Yours can be anything.

Keyboard first

Your saved devices sit on one screen as cards. Pick one with a shortcut and you are in. Everything you do often has a key.

Keyboard shortcuts
`⌘1`–`⌘9`	Connect to a saved device
`⌘N`	Add a device
`⌘W`	Back to the device list
`⌘=` `⌘-`	Bigger or smaller text
`⌘,`	Open the side panel

Want Caps Lock as Control or Escape? iOS does it: Settings, General, Keyboard, Hardware Keyboard, Modifier Keys.

The device list: saved servers shown as cards, each with its address and a ⌘1 to ⌘6 shortcut.

Touch where it helps

The keyboard does the typing. The screen handles the few things a small keyboard makes awkward.

Slide for arrow keys

Hold a finger on the terminal and slide it. Each step sends an arrow key, with a haptic tick so you can feel it.
Swipe from the edges

Swipe in from the left edge to go back to your devices. Swipe in from the right to open the side panel.
Snippets

Save the commands you type every day. Tap one to run it. Long-press to paste it without running, or to delete it.

The key bar under the terminal has the keys many compact keyboards lack. The on-screen keyboard stays hidden until you ask for it.

Looks like your terminal

Eleven themes, and the one you pick colors the whole app, not only the terminal.

DeckTerm
Phosphor
Amber
One Dark
Darcula
Catppuccin
Dracula
Gruvbox
Nord
Tokyo Night
Solarized

Five fonts: JetBrains Mono, the default, plus Fira Code, IBM Plex Mono, SF Mono and Menlo. Font, size and theme live under Look in the side panel.

The side panel open beside the terminal, showing the theme picker as a grid of colored cards.

Private by design

DeckTerm talks to the SSH servers you add, directly from your phone, and to nothing else.

No accounts, no trackingNo sign-up, analytics, ads or servers of its own. The app collects no personal data.
Secrets stay on this iPhonePasswords and your private key live in the iOS Keychain, marked this-device-only: not synced to iCloud, not moved to another phone, never in a backup.
Host keys are pinnedThe first connection to a server remembers its key. If the key ever changes, DeckTerm refuses to connect and shows you the new fingerprint.
Password or keySign in with a password, or with one OpenSSH private key (ed25519 or RSA, passphrase optional) shared by all your devices.

Read the privacy policy and the security model.

Free, with a tip jar

DeckTerm is free and nothing in it is locked. If it earns a place on your deck, you can leave a small, medium or large tip under About in the app's … menu.

Tips go through Apple's In-App Purchase and unlock nothing. DeckTerm is made by Mert Cobanov, an independent developer.

Questions

Which keyboards work?

Any hardware keyboard iOS supports, over Bluetooth or a cable.

Can I keep a session running in the background?

Not yet. Leaving the terminal or iOS suspending the app ends the session, so run tmux or screen on the server to keep your work going.

Does it support mosh, SFTP or port forwarding?

Not yet. DeckTerm runs one SSH session at a time, without mosh, SFTP, port forwarding or jump hosts.

How do I move my setup to a new phone?

Export a backup file from the … menu on the device list, then restore it on the new phone, even from the first-launch screen. Passwords and your key are never in the backup, so add them again.