CellGlide User Guide

01Meet CellGlide

CellGlide runs a proxy on your iPhone. The companion Mac app hands the Mac's network requests to the phone over USB, and the phone sends them to the internet over cellular. The Mac app finds the phone on USB and connects automatically once the phone shares, so the Mac's web pages, apps and video calls use the phone's internet (under the hood, a TUN virtual interface carries TCP, UDP and DNS).

The first launch shows a welcome screen; tap “Continue” to reach the home screen. You can open it again from Settings → About → Product introduction.

02First connection: iPhone + Mac

This uses the companion Mac app's native USB forwarding: no iproxy and no proxy to set up.

1. Get the phone ready. Make sure cellular data works and CellGlide is allowed to use it. Connect the Mac with a USB cable that carries data; the first time, unlock the phone and tap “Trust”.
2. Start sharing on the phone. Open CellGlide, tap “Start sharing” and keep the app on screen.
3. Open the Mac app. Download it from the website, move it to Applications, open it and click the CellGlide icon in the menu bar. It has no Dock icon. If you open it straight from Downloads, it asks to move into Applications; click Move to Applications and Reopen. A copy left in Downloads can’t connect or update itself.
4. Allow in Background. The first time, click “Allow in Background” and allow CellGlide in System Settings → General → Login Items & Extensions, then return to the app. The background part puts the Mac on the phone's internet and takes it back to your network when you disconnect.
5. Wait for it to connect. While the phone is sharing, the Mac connects automatically; there is no switch to turn on. Wait for “Connected — your Mac is using the phone’s internet”. If it says “Phone connected — click Connect to use its internet”, your Mac isn’t using the phone’s internet yet; click “Connect” under the status.
6. Confirm the connection. The phone's home screen shows this Mac's name, USB speed and how long it has been connected; open a web page on the Mac and the Mac live traffic and network total under “Network status” change.

When you are done, click “Disconnect and go back to your network” on the Mac, then “Stop sharing” on the phone. Disconnect lasts only until you plug the phone in again or the phone starts sharing again (after stopping, or from a reopened phone app); until then a “Connect” button shows under the status, so you can reconnect any time. “Quit CellGlide” at the bottom of the Mac panel also restores the network.

03Home screen and network information

The home screen starts and stops sharing, shows the connected Mac, and summarizes the phone's network and usage.

Tap “View all” on “Network status” for traffic statistics. The tab bar at the bottom switches to Diagnostics, Quality (network quality and the speed test) and Settings.

Public IP details appear after a check; they are not continuous location tracking. The cellular check verifies the phone's exit only, not whether the Mac is connected.

04Foreground sharing and the Dynamic Island

The App Store version uses foreground sharing: keep CellGlide on screen while sharing. The screen stays awake by default; turn on “Minimum brightness during foreground sharing” in Settings to save power.

Switching to another app for a moment

After you switch apps, iOS keeps sharing going for about 30 seconds. Meanwhile the Dynamic Island (and the Lock Screen) shows:

• An hourglass and countdown: seconds left before sharing pauses; touch and hold to expand it with live download and upload speed.
• Tap the Dynamic Island to return to CellGlide without interrupting sharing.
• When the countdown ends sharing pauses, the island reads “Paused · Tap to resume”, and the Mac switches back to its own network. Returning to the app resumes sharing (with “Resume sharing on return to foreground” on) and the Mac reconnects.

With the app on screen, the island shows the sharing icon and the current download speed (“Live” when idle), averaged every 2 seconds to match the app. Tapping “Stop sharing” removes it. While sharing, the home screen notes “Sharing pauses about 30 s after you leave the app”.

Focus page

While sharing, tap “Focus” beside “Stop sharing” for a black full-screen page with large download and upload speeds, the time, this session's use, how long you've been sharing and network quality. It turns the screen to the lowest brightness and keeps it awake, so you can leave the phone aside while sharing; the content shifts slightly every minute to prevent burn-in.

Taps do nothing on the focus page; touch and hold anywhere for a second to leave, so stray taps can't interrupt sharing. Turn on “Open the focus page when sharing starts” in Settings → Runtime and background to open it each time sharing starts.

Development build: VPN background sharing

In the development build, turn on “Enable VPN background sharing” in Settings → Sharing mode and allow the VPN configuration the first time; once sharing runs you can switch apps or lock the phone. The VPN configuration only runs sharing in the background on the phone; it does not connect to any outside VPN server.

Background mode only listens on the local USB forwarding port, not on hotspot or LAN addresses. Switching modes interrupts current connections; another VPN can conflict with background sharing, so turn that one off first.

05Traffic statistics: live, by service and history

Live speed

The title matches the home screen: the whole phone's speed while not sharing, Mac live traffic while sharing. The top shows download and upload speed, with a two-minute chart: purple upload above the zero line, blue download below it. The lower curve only separates the directions; it is not negative traffic. Touch and hold the chart to read a moment's speed.

Network quality

While the app is on screen or sharing, it sends a tiny query to Cloudflare DNS (1.1.1.1) over cellular every 2 seconds and times the round trip, using about 0.3 MB an hour. The last minute gives a 0–100 score with Excellent / Good / Fair / Poor, plus median latency, jitter and loss; the chart shows the last 5 minutes of latency, with red ticks for lost packets. Rising latency or more loss usually points to signal or a busy cell.

Latency under load compares latency at idle with latency while a download or upload fills the link. The bigger the increase, the more other apps lag when the link is busy (bufferbloat). Grades are None (under 30 ms), Mild (30–60 ms), Noticeable (60–200 ms) and Severe (over 200 ms), and the worse direction, upload or download, is named. It appears after you download or upload something large.

By service and protocol breakdown

“By service” groups traffic into services such as YouTube, iCloud or WeChat and lists other registrable domains by name; connections seen only by IP address are matched to the domains the phone resolved for the Mac, and the rest show as “Unidentified”. Tap a service for its domains' shares and the last 30 days of daily use. “Protocol breakdown” classifies traffic by handshake and packet patterns. Both headers name the current range, for example “By service · This session”, and follow the session, day or month chosen under “Usage history”.

Usage by service keeps only registrable domains (such as example.com) on the phone, never full addresses or content.

Destination map

Tap the globe button at the top of Traffic statistics to open the destination map in landscape and see where your Mac's traffic goes during this sharing session.

• Arcs: one runs from your exit (the phone's current public address) to each service in use. Dots flow both ways at the real pace: blue for downloads, green for uploads.
• List: the services moving data now and where they are, by traffic. A service that goes quiet slides out after a few seconds and comes back when traffic resumes; the globe keeps a dimmer dot for it.
• Controls: drag the globe with your finger; tap a service in the list to turn the globe to it. Tap × at the top left to close and go back to portrait.

Places come from IP addresses, to the state or province. Many services use CDNs, so you see the server near you, not the company's headquarters. The first time, the app downloads about 2 MB of location data from geoip.cellglide.com and then checks for an update at most once a week; it looks up the exit's public IP once through cellglide.com.

The destination addresses and traffic the map uses stay in the phone's memory, are cleared when sharing stops, and are never saved or uploaded. IP location data by DB-IP (CC BY 4.0).

Cumulative usage and usage history

“Cumulative usage” is everything recorded on this phone and survives stopping sharing or restarting the app. Choose the range under “Usage history”:

• Session: the current or a past session; “Current / latest” returns to the newest.
• Day: change the date with the arrows or the bar chart; “Back to today” returns to today. Below, a comparison with the previous day.
• Month: change the month with the arrows or the bar chart; “Back to this month” returns to this month. Below, a comparison with the previous month and the daily average; for this month, a projection at the current pace.

Sharing history

The bottom lists the five latest sessions with time, duration, usage and the Mac that used them; tap one to show its data. Tap “All N sessions” for the full list:

• Sessions are grouped by the day they started, with each day's count and usage in the header; the last 7 days start expanded, tap an older header to open it.
• “Empty sessions” under a minute and 1 MB are hidden; turn on “Show empty sessions” at the bottom to see them.
• Tap a session for its time, duration, Mac, average and peak speed, usage by service and protocols; tap “Usage by service for this day” for the whole day.

Stopping and starting again creates a new session. Days follow the device's current time zone.

Clearing all records

1. Scroll to the bottom and tap “Clear all records”.
2. Read the confirmation; tap “Cancel” to keep everything, or “Clear all records” in the alert to reset.
3. Cumulative usage, sessions, day and month history, usage by service, protocols and the live chart are all cleared. If sharing is running it briefly restarts and counts from zero.

06DNS settings and checks

DNS turns domain names into network addresses. CellGlide DNS handles the phone proxy’s domain resolution and ordinary DNS requests from a connected Mac.

Choose a provider or custom endpoint

1. Turn on Use CellGlide DNS.
2. Under Service, choose Cloudflare, Google, AliDNS, Tencent DNSPod, OpenDNS or Custom DoH. Cloudflare is the default.
3. For custom DoH, enter a full HTTPS endpoint such as https://cloudflare-dns.com/dns-query, then tap Done on the keyboard. Include a path. Credentials, query parameters and URL fragments are not supported.
4. Optionally enable Cache results. The in-memory cache respects DNS lifetimes and is cleared when sharing stops.
5. Tap Check current DNS to view resolution results and timing.

Every change is saved and takes effect as soon as you make it; there is no Save button. A change restarts active sharing and briefly interrupts connections. The Mac reconnects after detecting the new phone session. If it remains waiting, click Check again.

DNS speed test

Not sure which DNS is fastest? Tap Test DNS server speeds. Over cellular, the app looks up 6 common domains with each server, ranks them by median time, marks the Fastest, and shows each one's range and failures; one that can't be reached shows as Unreachable. A run uses only a few KB. Tap Use beside a server to switch to it at once.

Turn off CellGlide DNS

Turn off Use CellGlide DNS; it takes effect at once. The phone proxy delegates domain resolution to the system, and while connected, the Mac client uses public DNS (Cloudflare, Google) sent through the phone. Use Mac client 0.5.6 or later; with earlier versions websites may not open after turning it off.

DNS acceleration

Optimistic DNS: when a cached answer expires, the phone replies with it right away and looks up the latest one in the background, so familiar sites skip a lookup. Requires Cache results. Concurrent DNS queries: if a lookup takes longer than 0.8 s, the backup encrypted DNS is asked too (Google behind Cloudflare, AliDNS and Tencent DNSPod behind each other, Cloudflare otherwise) and the first answer wins, encrypted throughout. Both are on by default; while sharing, the page shows how often each helped.

Read query statistics

Queries counts queries received by the current sharing process. Cache hits counts replies from the phone cache. Valid cache entries counts entries that have not expired. Query failures counts failed queries. Mac-side cache hits do not create phone queries, so these are not counts of all app requests.

When enabled, upstream queries use cellular data and do not automatically fall back to Wi-Fi or another provider. An upstream specified by hostname needs an initial system lookup. SOCKS-only clients may still resolve locally; curl’s socks5h option sends destination hostnames to the phone.

07Network diagnostics

Tap Start diagnostics and review each result. Stop diagnostics cancels the run. Leaving the page or moving the app to the background also cancels it.

A green check means passed, a red cross means failed, and a gray minus means skipped. One failed DNS server or site does not prove the entire internet connection is down. HTTPS timing includes lookup, connection, TLS and response; it is not ICMP ping latency.

08Cellular speed test

1. On the “Speed test” card, tap Start speed test. The test runs in the card, and the page scrolls so the whole card stays in view.
2. The signal bars cycle gray while latency is measured, then blue for download and purple for upload: each runs 6 connections for 10 seconds, leaving out the first 2 seconds of ramp-up. Reaching the data cap may end sampling early. Tap Stop to end early; switching tabs or moving to the background also stops it.
3. When it finishes the bars turn green and the card shows HTTPS latency and data used. The share button sends a result card image; Test again runs another. On failure the bars turn red with the reason.
4. With data plan reminders on and less than 1.5 GB left this month, the app asks before starting. The ⓘ at the card’s top right explains the method.

Finished tests are kept under Recent speed tests, on this iPhone only, so you can compare places and networks. Swipe one left to delete it.

The Cloudflare test measures the phone’s cellular exit directly, not the computer’s speed through the USB proxy. It measures the speed to Cloudflare, which may be lower than to your carrier’s own test servers.

Mbps means megabits per second; MB/s means megabytes per second (1 MB/s is about 8 Mbps). HTTPS latency is the median of three request timings, excluding connection establishment; it is not ICMP ping.

09Other phone settings

Mac connection

Explains connecting a Mac over USB and links to the Mac app download. The proxy only accepts local connections forwarded over USB; it is not open to Wi-Fi, hotspot or LAN.

Data plan

Turn it on in Settings → Traffic → Data plan; the first time, the app asks to send notifications. Usage counts only data shared through CellGlide (iOS doesn't provide the carrier's count) and stays on this iPhone.

Runtime and background

About

Reopen the product introduction, read this guide, get support, read the privacy policy, or open CellGlide's Telegram Channel for news and tips.

10Mac app

CellGlide runs in the menu bar. Click the menu bar icon to open a small panel with the connection status, the iPhone (battery, carrier, live speed), connection health and the Split Tunneling switch, plus “Disconnect and go back to your network” and “Open CellGlide…”. “Open CellGlide…” opens the main window; while it is open, CellGlide also shows in the Dock. Closing the window does not disconnect. This covers Mac app 1.1 on Apple silicon or Intel with macOS 13 or later.

Recovery and compatibility

• No other network: with Wi-Fi off, plug in the phone and the Mac gets online through it.
• Automatic recovery: after unplugging, the phone stopping or the countdown ending, the app disconnects within about a second and the Mac returns to its own network; even if the app quits unexpectedly, macOS reclaims CellGlide's virtual interface, routes and temporary DNS on its own.
• Local networks and Tailscale: while connected, private networks (10.0.0.0/8, 172.16.0.0/12, 192.168.0.0/16, 100.64.0.0/10) keep using the Mac's own Wi-Fi or Ethernet and never go to the phone, so office subnets, a NAS on another VLAN, printers and Tailscale keep working while everything else goes through the phone.
• Other VPNs: from 1.1, you can turn on another VPN (Shadowrocket, for example) after CellGlide connects. It takes over its own routes and DNS, and its encrypted traffic goes out through the phone; turn it off and CellGlide restores itself.
• System settings untouched: CellGlide uses only its own temporary network service and never changes the DNS saved for Wi-Fi, iPhone USB or other network services.

The app is not a kill switch: if Wi-Fi or another network is available, apps use it once the phone disconnects.

11FAQ