sidewind

Sidecar, but your Windows PC is the tablet.

Turn a Windows monitor into a true wireless extended display for your Mac. Not mirroring, a real second screen. No unplugging the monitor. No wires. No subscription.

GitHub Quick start

What it does

macOS grows a new virtual display. Its pixels stream over the LAN to a fullscreen window on Windows, and the Windows keyboard and mouse drive it. Your Mac's own input keeps working too.

Nobody shipped this for free before. Sidecar is Mac to iPad. spacedesk runs the wrong way. Duet and Luna cost money or need a dongle. Sidewind fills the gap.

How it works

macOS (Swift) Windows (Rust) virtual display udp recv + reassemble -> ScreenCaptureKit -> decode -> VideoToolbox H.264 -> fullscreen render -> udp ------------- video -------------> <------------ input -------------- keyboard + mouse CGEvent inject (normalized events)

Quick start (one machine, loopback)

Software decode is cross platform, so you can test the whole thing on the Mac alone.

# terminal 1 - receiver (needs nasm: brew install nasm)
cargo run -p sidewind-win --features decode-openh264 -- \
  --listen 0.0.0.0:9000 --mac 127.0.0.1:9001

# terminal 2 - sender
swift build -c release --package-path mac
./mac/.build/release/SidewindMac --peer 127.0.0.1 --res 1920x1080 --fps 60

Grant Screen Recording when prompted, relaunch, then drag a window onto the Sidewind display. For two machines, swap 127.0.0.1 for each LAN IP.

Built with

proto

Rust wire protocol, the source of truth

win

Rust receiver: reassemble, decode, render, input

mac

Swift sender: virtual display, capture, encode, inject