Claude Code Remote Control Can Start Sessions From Your Phone

Claude Code's Remote Control can now start a session from your phone. Anthropic's own release digest for Week 34 says that "any machine running claude remote-control now shows up as a device card at the top of the Code tab in the Claude app," and that you "tap it to pick a directory and start a session there." The same digest records that Remote Control is out of research preview. (Claude Code, Week 34 - August 17-21, 2026)

The phone is a control surface, not the execution environment. Claude Code keeps running on the local machine, with local filesystem access, tools, MCP servers, and project configuration staying there while the conversation and progress are synchronized to the phone or browser. (Claude Code Remote Control documentation)

Update (August 31, 2026): the phone-start flow is now on an Anthropic-owned page

When this article published on August 23, its headline claim rested on a ClaudeDevs post on X. That post is no longer readable by any automated tool: x.com answers with HTTP 200 and roughly 270KB of JavaScript with none of the post text in it, so a status-code check reads it as a successful fetch while returning nothing to verify.

Re-checking on August 31 found the claim on a durable Anthropic-owned surface instead. The Week 34 release digest (August 17-21, 2026, releases v2.1.234 to v2.1.239) carries the device-card flow in Anthropic's own words and adds that Remote Control has left research preview. Every citation to the phone-start flow on this page now points there. Two details the original write-up did not have:

• The directory is picked from the phone, but the server decides what it means. claude remote-control runs with --spawn same-dir by default, so every session it creates shares the working directory the server was started in and they can conflict if they edit the same files. --spawn worktree gives each on-demand session its own git worktree instead, and requires a git repository. --spawn session serves exactly one session and rejects further connections.
• Remote Control is out of research preview. The reference documentation carries no preview or beta label on the feature. Trusted Devices, covered below, is still marked beta.

Start from the Claude app

The flow Anthropic documents is:

1. In a project directory on the machine, run claude remote-control.
2. Open the Claude app and tap Code.
3. Find the machine's device card at the top of the Code tab.
4. Tap the machine and pick a directory.
5. Start the Claude Code session on that machine, then continue from the phone.

The release digest describes the phone-start flow, while the reference documentation lists claude remote-control as server mode and explains that the session URL or QR code can open the session in claude.ai/code or the Claude app. (Claude Code, Week 34; Claude Code Remote Control documentation)

Server mode takes flags worth knowing before the first run:

Give these flags after remote-control, not before it. (Claude Code Remote Control documentation)

You can also expose an existing session instead of starting a new one. The documentation lists --remote-control and --rc for an interactive session, plus /remote-control or /rc inside an existing session. An existing session carries over its current conversation history when Remote Control is enabled. (Claude Code Remote Control documentation)

What stays on the computer

Remote Control does not move the project to the phone. Claude Code keeps code execution and filesystem access on the local machine, and the documentation says the local filesystem, MCP servers, tools, and project configuration are made available remotely through the connected session. (Claude Code Remote Control documentation)

That boundary makes the feature useful for long-running work without turning a phone into a development workstation. A session can keep running in a terminal or server process while you inspect progress, answer a question, send the next prompt, or attach a photo from the Claude app. Files attached from the app are downloaded to the machine and passed to Claude as file references. (Claude Code Remote Control documentation)

The phone can also show subagents and workflows already running in the background. Stopping one from the phone stops that task on the machine, so treat the connected device as an active control surface rather than a read-only dashboard. (Claude Code Remote Control documentation)

Sync and reconnection improvements

The phone-start workflow shipped alongside synchronization and reconnect changes. All three are in the reference documentation as of August 31, 2026: the conversation and the progress of subagents and dynamic workflows "stay in sync across all connected devices, so you can send messages from your terminal, browser, and phone interchangeably"; switching conversations while a device is still connected does not archive the session; and claude.ai and the Claude app "show the session as offline within seconds after the process exits." (Claude Code Remote Control documentation)

The durable documentation describes the separate reliability behavior in more detail. If the laptop sleeps or the network drops, Claude Code reconnects automatically when the machine returns online, and queued status updates from subagents and workflows are delivered after recovery. The local process still has to remain alive for the session to stay available. (Claude Code Remote Control documentation)

This distinction matters: reconnect behavior helps an active session survive an interruption, while the phone-start feature is what lets you begin a new session on a connected machine without first sitting at that machine. The two capabilities work together, but they solve different problems.

Plans and setup boundaries

The requirements section of Anthropic's documentation lists Remote Control for Pro, Max, Team, and Enterprise plans. Team and Enterprise workspaces have an extra administrative gate: it is off by default there until an Owner enables the Remote Control toggle in Claude Code admin settings. A note at the top of the same page says Remote Control "is available on all plans," which is broader than the requirements list directly below it; the requirements list is the specific one and it is what this article follows. (Claude Code Remote Control documentation)

Remote Control does not use an Anthropic API key. The documentation says API-key authentication is unsupported and that the feature requires a claude.ai login. It is also unavailable when using Amazon Bedrock, Google Cloud's Agent Platform, or Microsoft Foundry, when you sign in through an enterprise Claude apps gateway, and when ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL points to a host other than api.anthropic.com. Before v2.1.196, Claude Code allowed Remote Control with a custom ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL. (Claude Code Remote Control documentation)

Before trying it, run Claude Code from the project directory at least once to accept the workspace trust dialog. The startup trust dialog never saves trust for your home directory, so start Remote Control from a project directory. Keep the machine awake and connected for the workflow you want to control remotely. If the process exits, the connected session goes offline rather than continuing to execute work on the phone. (Claude Code Remote Control documentation)

Four environment variables that silently switch it off

This is the requirement most likely to bite a privacy-conscious developer, and it is easy to miss. Remote Control availability depends on feature-flag evaluation, and Anthropic's documentation names four environment variables that each disable it:

• DISABLE_TELEMETRY
• DO_NOT_TRACK
• CLAUDE_CODE_DISABLE_NONESSENTIAL_TRAFFIC
• DISABLE_GROWTHBOOK

Set any one of them, in your shell or in the env block of a settings.json file, and Claude Code reports "Remote Control requires feature-flag evaluation" and names the variable it found. On versions before 2.1.154 the same configuration produced the more misleading "Remote Control is not yet enabled for your account" instead. Unsetting the variable is the documented fix. (Claude Code Remote Control documentation)

What an administrator controls

Three separate switches sit above the individual user, which matters if you are evaluating Remote Control for a team rather than for yourself.

The organization toggle. Off by default on Team and Enterprise. An Owner turns it on at Claude Code admin settings; it is a server-side organization setting.

disableRemoteControl. An IT administrator can turn Remote Control off on a device through managed settings, independent of the organization toggle and of how you are signed in. Anthropic also states that organizations with compliance requirements such as Zero Data Retention cannot enable Remote Control.

Trusted Devices, currently in beta on Team and Enterprise and off by default until an Owner enables it. When it is on, viewing or steering a Remote Control session requires an enrolled device and a sign-in no more than 18 hours old; past that, the member confirms with Face ID, Touch ID, Windows Hello, or a passkey. Anthropic says biometric checks run on the device and that it never receives fingerprints, face data, or any other biometric information, storing only the device's public key and metadata such as display name, platform, and enrollment time. The setting applies to Remote Control only, not to Claude chat, the terminal, or the API, and it is not retroactive: sessions already running when the toggle is turned on continue without the device requirement until they end. For a lost device, an admin can use Sign out everywhere to revoke a member's sessions and enrolled devices. (Claude Code Remote Control documentation)

A useful first workflow

Start with a bounded task on a machine you control: run claude remote-control in a repository, pick the project directory from the phone, and ask Claude Code to inspect or test a small change. Keep the first session visible on the machine so you can confirm permissions, MCP connections, and the project context before relying on phone-only control.

For longer work, use the phone to check progress and answer prompts, but keep the local execution boundary in mind. The session remains tied to the machine's filesystem and credentials, so anyone who can control the connected session should be treated as having meaningful access to that environment. One detail belongs in that assessment: Anthropic states that while Remote Control is connected, the session transcript, including your messages, Claude's responses, and tool activity, is stored on Anthropic servers to keep the conversation in sync across devices and to let the session reconnect after a network drop, retained under the Data usage policy. Execution and filesystem access stay on your machine, and the local session makes outbound HTTPS requests only, never opening inbound ports. The official documentation confirms the connection model and prerequisites; it does not make a general security guarantee for every project setup. (Claude Code Remote Control documentation)

Sources

Re-verified August 31, 2026.

• Claude Code, "Week 34 - August 17-21, 2026" release digest (releases v2.1.234 to v2.1.239), the Anthropic-owned source for the device-card phone-start flow and for Remote Control leaving research preview: https://code.claude.com/docs/en/whats-new/2026-w34
• Claude Code documentation, "Continue local sessions from any device with Remote Control," the load-bearing source for requirements, server-mode flags, the feature-flag environment variables, Trusted Devices, and transcript storage: https://code.claude.com/docs/en/remote-control
• ClaudeDevs on X, "You can now start a Claude Code session directly from your phone," August 21, 2026, the original announcement. Not machine-readable: as of August 31, 2026 this URL answers with HTTP 200 and roughly 270KB of JavaScript containing none of the post text, so it cannot be re-verified by any automated tool and is not load-bearing for any claim above: https://x.com/ClaudeDevs/status/2090933157243863142
• ClaudeDevs on X, "Your phone now stays in sync with what's running on your machine," August 21, 2026, same limitation: https://x.com/ClaudeDevs/status/2090933158795767846