How to use Codex from your phone in 2026: 9 ways compared

Disclosure: Enjoy is our product, and it runs Codex. We checked every way below against its maker’s own pages on November 1, 2026, and we say where another way is the better pick, including the free ones that don’t need Enjoy.

The ways to use Codex from your phone, compared

Codex doesn’t run on your phone. OpenAI’s mobile guide says “Codex runs tasks in the cloud or on a connected computer,” and your phone is where you “Follow progress, approve actions, and send instructions.” So two things decide which way suits you: where the agent runs, and whether you use Codex in the ChatGPT desktop app or the CLI.

Way	Best for	Price, checked November 1, 2026	Where the agent runs	On the phone	Agents
The ChatGPT app, connected to your computer	Carrying on chats from the ChatGPT desktop app	Included in your ChatGPT plan	Your Mac or Windows PC, or an SSH host it reaches	ChatGPT app for iPhone and Android	Codex and ChatGPT Work
Codex Cloud, in the ChatGPT app	Work that keeps going while your computer sleeps	From ChatGPT Plus, $20 a month; uses your plan’s allowance	OpenAI’s cloud	ChatGPT app, or ChatGPT on the web	Codex
Remodex	The Codex CLI on a Mac, from an iPhone	App Store purchases: $3.99 a month, $29.99 a year or $69.99 for Pro; the code is free to build	Your Mac	iPhone app	Codex, OpenCode
Happy	Codex and Claude Code, free, with voice	Free; more voice is an in-app subscription	Your computer	iPhone, Android and web apps	Codex, Claude Code; more in its desktop app
T3 Code	Moving a thread between agents, free	Free	Your computer, or a server you run	iPhone, Android and web apps	Codex, Claude Code, Cursor, Grok, OpenCode, Antigravity
Paseo	Many agents on one machine or several, free	Free	Your computers	iPhone, Android and web apps	Codex, Claude Code, OpenCode, Cursor, Muse Code and more
Orca	Watching agents and terminals, free	Free	Your computer, or an Orca server you run	iPhone app; an APK for Android	Codex, Claude Code and any other coding agent
SSH, with Tailscale and tmux	A plain terminal, with nothing in between	Free; Tailscale is free for personal use	Your computer	Any SSH app	Anything that runs in a terminal
Enjoy	Codex beside other labs’ agents, across all your projects	A monthly subscription, phone included, free for 7 days (pricing)	Your computers	Any phone’s browser, or its iPhone app	Codex, Claude Code, Grok Build, Antigravity, Muse Code, OpenCode

Prices are as each maker lists them in the US, before tax. Each way runs on your own ChatGPT account, and every one but the first two drives the Codex CLI on your computer. OpenAI’s pricing gives Free and Go “GPT-6 Luna at Standard speed in the desktop app, subject to rollout,” and lists “Codex on the web, in the CLI, in the IDE extension, and on iOS” from Plus, so those ways start at $20 a month. Pro is $100, $200 or $500.

Two more apps have phone companions if you already use them. Nimbalyst, free under the MIT license, has an iOS app to “See which agents need you, reply by text or voice, swipe through diffs,” for its desktop app on Mac, Windows and Linux. Conductor lets its iOS app work in your Mac’s local workspaces, but “Remote control is experimental,” its pricing lists the mobile app under Pro, at $50 a month, and “Conductor is not available for Windows or Linux yet.”

Which way fits how you run Codex

• You use the ChatGPT desktop app on a Mac or PC. Pair your phone with it, and you’re done. Older guides say this is Mac only, but OpenAI’s remote connections page now says “Remote access supports hosts running the ChatGPT desktop app on macOS and Windows.”
• You use the Codex CLI or an editor. The ChatGPT app can’t pair from there: “Mobile setup starts from the app; you can’t set it up from the Codex CLI or IDE extension.” Install the desktop app, or use one of the independent apps or SSH.
• Your computer runs Linux. The Linux desktop app is in preview, and OpenAI’s remote access names only Mac and Windows hosts. A Mac or PC host can reach a Linux machine over SSH, or an independent app can run on the Linux machine itself.
• Your computer will be off. Only Codex Cloud keeps going, on a GitHub repository. Every other way needs a computer that’s on, awake and online.

The ChatGPT app, connected to your computer

Best for: carrying on from the ChatGPT desktop app, with nothing else to install.

In the desktop app, open Settings > Connections > Control this Mac or PC, select Set up or Add, and scan the QR code with your phone. Then, in the ChatGPT app on iOS, open Codex, or Remote if your app still shows that. From there you can “Start new chats in projects on the host, or continue existing ones,” “Approve commands and other actions,” and “Review outputs, diffs, test results, terminal output, and screenshots,” and you “Get notified when ChatGPT completes a task or needs your attention.” Your files, credentials and tools stay on the computer. To work in a remote environment, “Connect the desktop app host to that environment first; your phone still connects to the same host.”

Price: nothing on top of your plan. OpenAI’s May announcement said it was rolling out “across all plans, including Free and Go, in all supported regions,” and its pricing table marks it unavailable on an API key.

Watch for: “If that computer sleeps, loses network access, or closes the app, remote access stops until it’s available again.” On a Mac laptop, “With the lid closed, connect an external display as well.” Both devices need “the same account and workspace,” and in a workspace, “your admin may need to enable Remote Control access.” “Availability can vary by rollout.” OpenAI describes “A secure relay layer” between the devices, and the pages we read don’t claim end-to-end encryption. It runs only OpenAI’s agents.

Codex Cloud, in the ChatGPT app

Best for: handing Codex a task on a GitHub repository, then putting your phone away with your computer shut.

“Give Codex coding tasks to work through in the cloud, from investigating bugs to building features,” says OpenAI’s Codex Cloud page. “Each task has its own workspace and can keep working while your computer is asleep.” You review the changes and test results, ask for follow-ups, and commit or open a pull request, on the web, on your phone or in the desktop app.

Price: from Plus, at $20 a month. “Local messages and cloud chats share your plan’s usage allowance,” and “Cloud tasks may use more of your allowance than local messages.”

Watch for: you set it up elsewhere first. “On mobile, open Codex. Select an existing environment to begin working. To create a new one, use the web or desktop app.” It works from GitHub, “Choose your GitHub repositories,” so the files and tools on your computer aren’t there. An API key has “No cloud-based features.”

Remodex

Best for: the Codex CLI on a Mac, from an iPhone, with no ChatGPT desktop app.

“Control Codex or OpenCode from your iPhone,” says Remodex’s README. It’s “a local-first open-source bridge + iOS app that keeps the coding runtime on your Mac,” under Apache 2.0, with more than 3,300 stars. Run npm install -g remodex@latest and remodex up on your Mac, and scan the QR code once. It lists “End-to-end encrypted pairing and chats between your iPhone and Mac,” “Steer active runs without starting over,” and “Git actions from your phone, including commit, push, pull, and branch switching.”

Price: the App Store lists it as free to install, with in-app purchases of $3.99 a month, $29.99 a year and $69.99 for Remodex Pro. An earlier release note there added “5 free messages before upgrading to Pro.” Building the iOS app from its source yourself costs nothing, though “public GitHub/source checkouts” don’t “ship with a hosted relay baked in.”

Watch for: “I am very early in this project. Expect bugs.” It’s “Only for iPhone,” and “the daemon-backed trusted reconnect path is macOS-only.” It needs the “Codex CLI authenticated on the Mac.”

Happy

Best for: a free, open-source app for Codex and Claude Code, on iPhone or Android, with voice.

Happy is “Free and open source,” under the MIT license, with more than 24,000 stars on GitHub. Its original command line wraps Codex itself: npm install -g happy, then happy codex. Its mobile access page says “Pair the Happy app for iPhone or Android once, and every session on your computer is on your phone, end-to-end encrypted.” From the phone you can answer permission requests, switch model and effort, start a session in a directory, and read files and Git changes. The relay “sees that machines and sessions exist and when they were active, not what is in them.”

Price: free. “Voice in the phone app is the only thing we charge for: 20 free minutes per 30 days, then up to 5 hours per 30 days on the in-app subscription.”

Watch for: “The agent stays on your machine,” so that machine has to be on. Its desktop app starts “its own agent runtime”, where GPT models get Codex’s prompts and tools, so to drive the Codex CLI itself, use happy codex. “The phone holds the account’s primary key,” and “A lost phone or a conflicting saved account is a recovery conversation.”

T3 Code

Best for: moving one thread between Codex and other agents, free, from a server or your desk.

T3 Code says “Orchestrate Claude Code, Codex, Antigravity, OpenCode, Cursor, and Grok from one surface,” and it’s MIT-licensed, with more than 37,000 stars on GitHub. Its FAQ says “Run npx t3 up on any box and drive it from anywhere,” and “Get the iOS or Android app, then connect it to your computer with T3 Connect or a pairing link.” It “transfers conversation context when you switch providers.”

Price: “There’s no way to pay us to use T3 Code.” T3 Connect, its way in from outside your network, “is free too, for now,” for up to three machines, and it adds: “if the bill gets unacceptable we may have to change course.” Tailscale and a pairing link work too.

Watch for: “The phone is a remote. Your computer does the work and needs to stay on.” Its README says “We are very very early in this project. Expect bugs.” It sends “basic product usage events,” with “No prompts, no file contents,” until you set T3CODE_TELEMETRY_ENABLED=false.

Paseo

Best for: Codex and other agents on one machine or several, free, with a full app on the phone.

Paseo is “free and open source,” under Apache 2.0, with more than 22,000 stars on GitHub, and “The mobile app is the full app, native on iOS and Android.” To pair, “open Settings → your host → Pair Device.” Its hosted relay “is designed to be untrusted”: “All traffic between your phone and daemon is end-to-end encrypted.” Or skip it for “direct TCP, Tailscale, or other VPN connections.”

Price: free. “You need agent providers installed with your own credentials.”

Watch for: “Paseo runs a local server called the daemon that manages your coding agents,” so the machine running it has to stay on. The relay is “off on new installations,” and Paseo asks before turning it on. It’s “maintained by one person, full time,” and Paseo Hub, for teams, has no price on its homepage.

Orca

Best for: keeping an eye on Codex and its terminals, free, with its usage in view.

Orca is “Free and open source,” under the MIT license, on Mac, Windows and Linux. Its mobile companion “gives you a read-mostly view of running agents,” with a chat view for Codex, push notifications “when an agent finishes,” and source control for staging and committing. For Codex in particular, you can “see usage / rate-limit state on the go,” and “When Codex has earned reset credits, spend one from the accounts screen.”

Price: free.

Watch for: “The mobile app is intentionally not a full editor,” and “Closing the desktop app drops a direct/LAN session until you reopen it.” On Android, you install an APK from its GitHub releases rather than from a store. And by default, it launches Codex with --dangerously-bypass-approvals-and-sandbox, on the reasoning “that worktrees are disposable,” so choose Manual under Settings → Agents → Agent Permissions if you want to approve commands from your phone, and check Settings → Chat → Behavior for its chats.

SSH, with Tailscale and tmux

Best for: a plain terminal on your phone, with no coding app in between, on any machine you can reach.

The do-it-yourself way: put your computer and phone on one private network with Tailscale, connect from an SSH app such as Blink Shell or Termius, and run the Codex CLI inside tmux so it survives a dropped connection. codex resume reopens a recent chat if it doesn’t. OpenAI’s own advice for reaching a machine outside your network is to “use a VPN or mesh networking tool” rather than exposing its server to the internet. This is also the simplest way to reach a Linux box.

Price: free. Tailscale’s Personal plan is “$0 for up to 6 users,” and Standard is $8 a user a month.

Watch for: Tailscale says its Personal plan “is only suitable for non-commercial use.” Tailscale SSH, its own login for SSH, reaches “only Linux devices and macOS open source” versions, so elsewhere use the computer’s own SSH server. It’s a terminal on a phone screen: no diffs to tap through, and nothing tells you when Codex needs you unless you set that up yourself.

Enjoy

Best for: Codex beside other labs’ agents, across every project on your computer, from any phone.

Enjoy runs Codex, Claude Code, Grok Build, Antigravity, Muse Code, and local models through OpenCode, on Mac, Windows and Linux, on the plans you already have. You open app.enjoy.dev in your phone’s browser, or Enjoy’s iPhone app, and connect it to your computer once, by scanning a QR code and checking that six digits match. What it adds:

• Any phone, any project. From your phone you can start conversations in any project, answer agents’ questions, read and edit files, open the sites your agents start, run workflows, and ask JOY what needs you.
• Another agent when Codex runs out. A conversation waits for the reset and carries on, and on your phone you can select Stop waiting and hand it to Claude Code, which gets the conversation so far.
• A connection only your devices can read. Every connection between the phone and your computer is end-to-end encrypted: “Only your computer and that device can read what passes between them.”
• A computer that stays up. While an agent works, Enjoy keeps your computer from going to sleep for lack of use, though not when you close a laptop’s lid.

Price: Enjoy is one monthly subscription, and the first seven days are free, with a card to start. It includes your phone and any browser and your other computers, and each teammate you invite needs a subscription of their own. See pricing.

Watch for: it runs the Codex CLI, which OpenAI includes from Plus, so ChatGPT’s free plans won’t do. Your computer has to be “On and awake,” “Online,” and “Running Enjoy, signed in to your account.” It won’t come and find you: “On a phone, the browser pauses Enjoy while you’re in another app or the screen is locked,” and “The iPhone app doesn’t send notifications,” so you check in, where the ChatGPT app and Orca notify you. Android has the browser but no app. The web app shows Usage unavailable, the iPhone app shows no usage, and using a free reset stays on the computer, as do signing in to and installing agents. A phone set to Limited leaves approvals on the computer. Enjoy isn’t open source, and it’s a monthly subscription on top of your ChatGPT plan once the free week ends.

When to stay with the ChatGPT app

If you work in the ChatGPT desktop app and Codex is your only agent, OpenAI’s way is the one to beat: it costs nothing on top of your plan, it notifies you, and it carries your local setup, and Codex Cloud covers the nights your computer is shut. Start there.

Look further when you live in the CLI, when your computer runs Linux, when you want Claude Code on the same phone, or when you want a relay that says it can’t read your work. If you’re choosing a plan for this, our Plus vs Pro guide helps, and our usage limit guide covers what to do when a long run from your phone stops at a limit.

How we compared

We read OpenAI’s pages on remote connections, Codex on mobile, Codex Cloud, the CLI, Linux and pricing, and its announcement; Remodex’s README and App Store page; Happy’s, T3 Code’s, Paseo’s, Orca’s, Nimbalyst’s and Conductor’s own pages and repositories; and Tailscale’s pricing and SSH docs on November 1, 2026, and every one is linked below. Licenses and star counts come from GitHub that day. We quote each maker’s own words for its limits and leave out what it hasn’t documented, and we didn’t test the independent apps ourselves. These apps change weekly, so we recheck this guide against its sources at least once a month, and the date at the foot of the page says when we last did.