# Keep your Mac available

Understand background availability, sleep and recovery.

Canonical: https://roboty.dev/guide/troubleshooting/mac-availability
Content revision: 23
Platforms: iphone, mac, browser

## When to use it

Check availability when Roboty cannot reach the selected Mac, or before leaving the Mac to use your phone elsewhere.

## Steps

1. Keep the Mac awake and logged in. For phone connections, open Roboty on the Mac, choose **Settings → iPhone Connection**, then choose **Enable availability**. Using only the Mac's open local workspace does not require background availability.
2. If macOS asks for approval, open Login Items settings, approve Roboty and return to the companion.
3. Closing the window or quitting the app keeps enabled background hosting available while the Mac stays awake and logged in. **Stop background hosting and quit…** is the separate menu action that stops it. After sleep or restart, wake and log in before expecting the phone to reconnect.
4. Read the companion’s status if it needs attention. Resume restores paused availability. Try again retries a reported startup failure.

## What to expect

The phone can reconnect to the same Mac without opening its window again. Availability means the service is reachable. The selected simulation still needs its own readiness checks. Resuming availability never starts another experiment.

On Mac, closing the window and Quit wait for new workspace edits, recording location, goal Undo and unfinished discussion to be retained locally. This does not save a new experiment revision. If storage cannot retain new edits, Roboty keeps your work open. Already saved local work does not need another write.

Unfinished project details have their own **Save**, **Discard changes** and **Cancel** review before replacing that project, closing the window or quitting. Workspace, Settings and Help keep those fields available. Discard removes unsent edits. It does not cancel a Save already sent to this Mac. Stop remains available for an original operation during the review.

If you choose Stop, Roboty records that request locally before closing. Stopping is not yet confirmed. Reconnect to inspect the original operation.

## If something goes wrong

- Wake and log in to a sleeping or restarted Mac. Check Roboty’s background approval and whether availability is paused or disabled.
- Pausing or turning off availability can interrupt active work. To stop hosting and quit, read the confirmation, then choose **Stop and Quit** or **Cancel**. Reconcile the original operation on the phone before starting another. Saved experiments, results and pairing stay available. Interrupted work does not resume automatically.
- If repeated recovery has stopped, read the confirmed failure in the Mac’s details before Try again. On the phone, drafts and downloaded results remain usable while the Mac is unavailable.
- If Quit reports a save failure, read the named record and storage reason. Recover workspace storage, then choose **Retry saving locally** or try Quit again. Unreadable original records stay intact.

## Screen lock and display off

You can keep automatic display-off and screen locking enabled. Supported
application actions use the running workspace and do not need to click its
window. The Mac must remain awake and logged in. Display-off and sleep are
different states. A stopped service or protected-storage prompt still needs its
normal recovery action. UI automation and screenshots retain their own visible
desktop requirements.

On iPhone, system actions require local authentication and foreground Roboty.
They do not provide the Mac's background availability. A device-local draft and a
Mac workspace remain separate until an explicit transfer.

## Opening a workspace on this Mac

Choose Open workspace to connect the Mac app to its local records. If startup
fails, Roboty shows a confirmed reason when available. Saved work and the
original operation remain retained. Choose Open workspace to retry that same
workspace. A retry does not start another experiment.

If another local service occupies Roboty’s connection address, review that
service before deliberately closing it and retrying. Roboty does not close it
for you or switch to different records. An unknown failure or a connection that
is still starting is reported separately.

Background availability has its own recovery control: use Try again for its
reported failure, or Resume when availability is paused. Opening the local
workspace does not enable background availability.

## Assistant connection and usage

[Continue in Ask Roboty](/guide/use/ask-roboty#assistant-connection-and-usage).

## Assistant on Mac

[Continue in Ask Roboty](/guide/use/ask-roboty#assistant-on-mac).

## ChatGPT account on Mac

[Continue in Ask Roboty](/guide/use/ask-roboty#chatgpt-account-on-mac).

## Reply access and usage

[Continue in Ask Roboty](/guide/use/ask-roboty#reply-access-and-usage).

## Keep the whole question

[Continue in Ask Roboty](/guide/use/ask-roboty#keep-the-whole-question).

## Questions in the Workbench browser

[Continue in Ask Roboty](/guide/use/ask-roboty#questions-in-the-workbench-browser).

## Find context and review an answer

[Continue in Ask Roboty](/guide/use/ask-roboty#find-context-and-review-an-answer).

## Recover the original answer

[Continue in Ask Roboty](/guide/use/ask-roboty#recover-the-original-answer).

## An uncertain answer

[Continue in Ask Roboty](/guide/use/ask-roboty#an-uncertain-answer).

Content ID: availability
Compiled digest: 421c922dc2ca80762975cc79a8672963a4cf278cb03e9113838f9c961e2b3b40
Language: en