Your iPhone on the Omarchy bar. Plug it in over USB and you get its battery at a glance and your camera roll one click away — browse it in your file manager, or import new photos to a folder on your computer. No jailbreak, no app on the phone.
- Battery in the bar. Once your iPhone is paired, its charge shows next to the bar icon — glance and go.
- One-click setup. The first time, the panel offers to install the two
system pieces it needs (
usbmuxd,ifuse) and start them, behind a single password prompt. Nothing to configure by hand. - Guided pairing. Plug in, press Pair, and the panel walks you through it — "Unlock the iPhone and tap Trust", "Enter the passcode" — in plain words, never a cryptic error.
- Open the camera roll. One click mounts the phone and opens its photos
(
DCIM) in your file manager, which already knows how to show HEIC. Eject from the same row when you're done. - Import photos, your way. Clicking import asks how far back to reach — the last 5 minutes, 24 hours, 7 days, or everything — and for All photos it shows the size and rough time before you commit. It copies only what isn't already there, so your folder stays safe to reorganize.
When an import finishes, a desktop notification tells you how many photos synced, how long it took, and where they landed — click it to open the folder.
- Add the widget (see Install), open its panel, and plug your iPhone in with a USB cable.
- If the panel shows a Set up iPhone support button, click it once and enter your password — it installs and starts what's needed.
- Press Pair, then on the iPhone tap Trust and enter your passcode. That's it — battery appears in the bar and the photo buttons light up.
Pairing is a one-time thing; after that, plugging in just works.
| Dependency | Needed for | Notes |
|---|---|---|
libimobiledevice |
talking to the iPhone | Usually already installed. |
usbmuxd |
the USB connection | The panel installs and starts it for you. |
ifuse |
opening the camera roll | The panel installs it for you. |
rsync |
importing photos | The panel installs it for you. |
xdg-open |
opening folders | Present on any desktop. |
omarchy plugin add https://github.com/dicemans/omarchy-plugin-iphone.git --enableThe widget lands in the bar's right section. Move it with:
omarchy bar move io.github.dicemans.iphone --section leftomarchy plugin remove io.github.dicemans.iphoneThat deletes the plugin and drops its entry from your shell config. It leaves
your imported photos exactly where they are, and it never touched your
containers, contacts, or anything on the phone. The two packages it offered
to install (usbmuxd, ifuse) stay unless you remove them yourself with
sudo pacman -Rns usbmuxd ifuse.
With the panel focused: arrows move, Enter activates (or presses the setup button), p opens photos on the selected device, r refreshes, Esc closes. In the import menu, up/down pick a window and Enter starts it.
Every action is scriptable, so you can bind it to a key:
omarchy-shell io.github.dicemans.iphone toggle
omarchy-shell io.github.dicemans.iphone openPhotos # first paired deviceThrough Setup → Plugins, or on the widget's entry in
~/.config/omarchy/shell.json:
| Setting | Default | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Refresh interval | 15 s |
How often battery refreshes while the panel is open. |
| Show battery in the bar | on | Paint the phone's charge next to the bar icon. |
| Only show this device | — | With several iPhones, list only the one whose UDID contains this text. |
| Import photos into | ~/Pictures/iPhone |
Where "Import photos" copies the camera roll. |
An iPhone doesn't let a Linux computer read its data over WiFi or Bluetooth the way a Mac does — Apple keeps that for its own devices. WiFi shows only presence (and only while the phone is awake), and Bluetooth won't hand a computer your contacts. Rather than ship buttons that disappoint, this plugin sticks to the cable, which does the useful things reliably, first try.
- The phone is mounted in a temporary, per-user location that's wiped when you log out and is never readable by other users.
- The only thing that ever asks for your password is the one-time setup (installing the two packages); its tooltip says exactly what it will do before you click. Browsing and importing photos need no elevation.
- Your photos are only ever copied where you choose; nothing is uploaded anywhere.
bin/iphone-ctl is a plain script — run it in a terminal to see what's going
on:
~/.config/omarchy/plugins/io.github.dicemans.iphone/bin/iphone-ctl deps
~/.config/omarchy/plugins/io.github.dicemans.iphone/bin/iphone-ctl statusMIT — see LICENSE.