Mouse, touch and pen

Get your mouse and keyboard back from a stream, then drive the host with a mouse, a touchscreen, a controller or a pen. The settings named here are in your client's Input settings; see Client settings.

Getting your input backCopy Anchor Link

A stream captures your mouse and keyboard when it starts and whenever you click the video: your cursor disappears and keys go to the host.

A stream opens with a one-line hint naming the way to leave, for a few seconds. Exit hint, an advanced setting, turns it off.

Press the release shortcut again, or click the stream, to capture again. Switching to another app releases input and takes it back when you return. Keys and buttons you were holding are let go on the host, so nothing sticks. A key press or release the network drops is sent again, so a bad Wi-Fi moment doesn't leave a key held either. On Linux and Windows, controllers stop reaching the host too until you capture again.

Keyboard shortcutsCopy Anchor Link

On an iPad, ⌘⎋ and every ⌃⌥⇧ shortcut work while input is captured.

To see the list without a stream: Keyboard Shortcuts in the Linux client's main menu, Shortcuts on the Windows client's host list, Settings → About → Stream controls on Android, or About → Shortcuts in the Apple apps' Settings. The macOS Stream menu lists them too. Each list covers the controller chords and touch gestures as well. With a pad alone, open the console's Settings → About → Stream controls (Linux, Windows, Steam Deck, Android and Apple).

macOS: while input is captured, every other ⌘ chord goes to the host, ⌘Q included. Turn Capture system shortcuts off to keep them local. ⌘⎋ always stays with the Mac; press it, then ⌃⌘F, to leave fullscreen. ⌘Space, ⌘Tab, Mission Control and other apps' global shortcuts go to the host too, with no permission to grant.

Android: Android keeps Alt+Tab, the Windows key and the Language key for itself. To send them, turn on Punktfunk keyboard shortcuts under Android's Accessibility settings; the app offers this at launch when a keyboard is attached, and under Settings → Input → Keyboard shortcuts. On Android 13 and newer a build from outside the Play Store first needs Allow restricted settings on the app's info page. Without the service, Alt+` stands in for Alt+Tab. Ctrl+Space reaches the host from Android 13 on.

Muting your microphoneCopy Anchor Link

The mute lasts for the current stream and stops only the sending, so unmuting is instant. Each switch shows Microphone muted or Microphone live over the stream for a few seconds, with the stats overlay on or off.

• Keyboard: the shortcut in the table above.
• Controller on Android: Select + Y, or a DualSense's own Mute button.
• Any client with a microphone: the dial's Microphone button.

With the microphone off in client settings, there is nothing to mute and the shortcut does nothing.

Controller chordsCopy Anchor Link

Hold Select (Back, View) first, then press the second button.

On an Apple TV remote, hold Play/Pause about half a second to cycle the stats overlay; a tap is a right click.

Leaving with a controllerCopy Anchor Link

Hold L1 + R1 + Start + Select (LB + RB + Start + Back on an Xbox pad) on any connected pad.

On Linux and Windows the chord needs Forward controllers on. With it off, use Ctrl+Alt+Shift+D or the client's own controls.

The guide button (Xbox / PS / Steam) and Quick AccessCopy Anchor Link

The guide button (the Xbox logo, the PS button, the Deck's Steam button) opens menus on the host. Where your device keeps that button for itself, hold Select on its own for about a third of a second instead: the host sees its guide button held for as long as you hold, and a long hold opens a SteamOS host's Quick Access Menu. A quick tap of Select still reaches the game, a beat late.

Two advanced settings control this: Guide button and Hold Select for guide. Automatic does this:

If Steam or the Xbox Game Bar on your own device also watches the guide button, both react; turn that off on your device. On macOS and iOS 27 and newer, add Punktfunk to Home Button Overrides in the system's game controller settings; while the system keeps the button, Punktfunk's Controllers settings link there. The dial's Guide button and Quick access menu buttons press the host's pad for you. Quick access menu needs Steam on the host: it presses the pad's own button where the virtual pad has one, and Guide with A on every other pad. On a Deck, the Punktfunk panel's Host menus buttons do the same (Steam Deck).

Mouse modesCopy Anchor Link

Mouse input picks one of two modes:

In both modes the only cursor over the stream is the host's. With Capture system shortcuts on, Alt+Tab and the Windows/Super key go to the host while input is captured; on Linux and Windows that holds in Desktop mode too, until you click another local window.

Switch live with Ctrl+Alt+Shift+M (⌃⌥⇧M). On Android, Ctrl+Alt+Shift+Q toggles capture instead. On an iPad, Capture pointer for games locks a mouse for mouse-look; it needs the stream fullscreen and in front.

• gamescope hosts only take relative motion, so Desktop mode stays captured there (see gamescope).
• Hosts that send their cursor separately: the Linux and Windows clients switch to relative motion while a host app grabs or hides the pointer, and back when it lets go. The mouse-mode shortcut overrides this until the host app changes its mind.

ScrollingCopy Anchor Link

Wheels, touchpads, touchscreens and controllers all scroll the host, with no setting to tune. A flick's glide is the one your device produced, on every host. On GNOME, Sway and Hyprland a touchpad scrolls host apps by the pixel, like a local one. KDE, gamescope and Windows take only wheel steps from a remote device, so apps there move a touchpad scroll in lines or ticks.

Invert scroll direction reverses every scroll you send, the controller mouse's included. To flip it for one stream, open the dial's centre sheet and choose Input → Invert scroll direction; your saved settings stay as they are.

Touch modesCopy Anchor Link

On a touchscreen (Android, iPhone, iPad, Linux, Windows), Touch input picks one of four modes:

• Trackpad (default) — your finger moves the host cursor like a laptop touchpad. Lift and swipe again to cross a large screen.
• Direct pointer — the cursor jumps to your finger and follows it.
• Touch passthrough — every finger is sent as a real touch, with no gestures. Only for apps that understand touch.
• Off — touches on the stream don't reach the host. Use it with the virtual controller, so a tap beside a button can't move the cursor.

Trackpad and Direct pointer share these gestures:

In Off, only the last three work.

Touch passthrough depends on the host:

The quick-action dialCopy Anchor Link

The dial is six buttons plus a centre that opens a sheet with every action and the resolution presets. Pick its six buttons under Quick actions in settings, or edit the dial itself.

A twist commits at about 30°; lift earlier and nothing is sent. On Android, turn off Back opens quick actions to make Back do nothing mid-stream; a mouse's Back button always goes to the host.

While the dial is up, input belongs to it and the host sees nothing:

• Controller: the left stick aims, the D-pad steps, A fires, Y returns to the centre, B closes.
• Keyboard: Tab steps through the buttons, the arrows aim, Enter fires, Esc closes.
• Mouse: the desktop clients hand the pointer back so you can click a button.

What the dial can hold:

A button a client can't serve is dimmed and says why. Send text works on Android against a host that takes typed text. Controller type works on the desktop clients: each press re-plugs your controllers as the next type (Automatic, Xbox 360, Xbox One, DualSense, DualShock 4, Steam Deck) for this stream. The next stream starts from your settings.

Controller mouseCopy Anchor Link

For a launcher, dialog or desktop that ignores controllers, fire Controller mouse on the dial. Each press moves the controller that opened the dial to the next mode, and each stream starts with Off:

• Off: the controller plays.
• Touchpad: the controller still plays, and its touchpads move the host's pointer.
• Full: the whole controller drives the pointer, and the game sees an idle pad.

The touchpads work the same in both modes. A tap never clicks, so a thumb resting on the pad mid-game fires nothing.

A controller without a touchpad plays on unchanged in Touchpad. In Full, the rest of the controller works like this:

Select stays with the dial, so Select + A still opens it. The button is dimmed with no controller connected, or when the host only lets this device send controller input.

Virtual controllerCopy Anchor Link

On Android, iPhone and iPad, the dial's Virtual controller button draws a controller over the stream. The host sees it as one more pad. Fingers on its controls drive the game; fingers elsewhere still drive the touch mode. Set Touch mode to Off to keep them from reaching the host. Under Quick actions in settings, pick a Layout (Full, Sticks and shoulders, D-pad and face buttons), set Opacity and Scale, or use Edit layout to move, resize and hide controls, separately for wide and upright screens.

Dual-screen handheldsCopy Anchor Link

On an Android handheld with a second screen of 7 inches or less, or a foldable half open, the stream takes one screen and a panel takes the other: statistics, the dial's actions, a keyboard that types on the host while the handheld's own buttons stay on the game, a trackpad and the virtual controller. Screens, on the dial or the panel, cycles three layouts: the panel below the picture, the picture below the panel, or one picture across both screens — its top half above, its bottom half below, the lower screen's touch landing on its half. That last one is how a DS or 3DS emulator's two screens land on two screens: set the emulator to a vertical layout with no gap, and the split lands on the hinge. A DS, 3DS or Wii U title launched from the library starts that way. The handheld remembers the layout per second screen, and an Automatic resolution follows it — the picture screen's mode, or two of them stacked when the picture spans both — at once where the host can change mode mid-stream, else from the next connect.

Foldable iPhoneCopy Anchor Link

Set a foldable iPhone down half open, like a laptop, and the stream splits at the hinge: the picture takes the upright half and the flat half becomes a trackpad, or the virtual controller while it is shown. Open the phone flat and the picture takes the whole screen again. Held half open like a book, nothing changes.

A Native display resolution follows the picture: the cover screen's mode when the phone is shut, the inner screen's when it is open, and the upright half's while it is half open. A size you picked stays as picked. With Match window on, the stream also follows a rotation and the space the phone gives the app beside another one. The host changes mode mid-stream where it can.

Pen and stylusCopy Anchor Link

A stylus sends position, pressure, tilt, barrel roll, hover, the eraser and two barrel buttons, so drawing apps on the host see a real pen.

Without host support, the stylus works as a finger, without pressure or tilt. To turn pen off for every client, switch off Pen input in the web console under Host → Input, or set PUNKTFUNK_PEN=0 in host.env. It applies from the next session.