Mac to iOS / iPadOS Recompilation

Play the Mac games you own on your iPad or iPhone. The tool takes a game installed on your Mac, recompiles or retargets it for iOS, signs it with your own Apple developer account and installs it on your device.

Your games, your devices. A port contains the game, so it is for your own devices only: never share the app. Ports of Steam games play only after you sign in with a Steam account that owns the game.

Download Recomp Helper · Getting started · Roadmap · How it works

Steam in your ports

A port of a Steam game carries its own Steam client, so it is on Steam the way the Mac game is. You sign in once, with the Steam Mobile app's QR scanner or with your password and Steam Guard, and that one sign-in covers the following:

License: the game plays for an account that owns it or borrows it through Family Sharing, and plays offline for 30 days after the last check.
Online status: your friends see you playing the game, until you leave it.
Steam Cloud saves: the same saves as the game on your Mac or PC. They download when the game starts and upload when you leave it, and a prompt lets you choose when two devices changed the same save. iCloud Drive sync is for games without Steam.
Achievements and stats: they unlock on your Steam account.
DLC: the port sees the DLC your account owns.
Online play in supported games (Valheim): Steam servers, the server list, crossplay servers and join codes, and hosting your own world.

Not there yet: joining a friend's game through Steam's relay, the friends list and invites, the Steam overlay and the Workshop. Unreal games (Stray) get the license and online status only, for now. How it works

Tested games

Tested on an iPad Pro 11" (M1, iPadOS 26.2) and an iPhone 17 (8 GB).

Game	Engine	iPad	iPhone
Timberborn 1.1.2	Unity 6, Mono	✅ Playable	✅ Playable, with a HUD laid out for the phone
Stray 1.5	Unreal Engine 4.27	✅ Playable, early testing	✅ Playable through chapter 4, at 30 frames/s
Valheim 1.0.20	Unity 6, Mono	✅ Playable, online play	✅ Playable

Timberborn


App size	2.3 GB
Screen	Landscape
Touch	In a game, touches drive the map directly: tap to click, drag to pan (or to draw paths and areas with a tool), two fingers to pan, pinch to zoom and twist to turn, a two-finger tap to cancel. Taps on the game's panels go straight to them. Placement mode lets you aim a building, then Place; Rows drags out paths and walls
Mobile UI	A HUD laid out for touch: a Colony tab and a View tab with drawers, the tools in a column on the left, rotate, flip and Place in a rail on the right. Always on on iPhone; on iPad, Settings › Interface › Mobile UI. Turning it on applies at once; turning it off applies from the next save loaded, or at once with Reload save now below the toggle, which saves the game and loads it again (new, not yet tried on a device)
Keys	Esc and Dev (the game's developer mode): beside the Dynamic Island on iPhone; on iPad above the tool bar, or bottom right with the Mobile UI. With the Mobile UI, developer mode adds a bug key that opens Development controls in a touch-sized window
Controller	Not used: Timberborn is played with a mouse
Keyboard, trackpad	✅
Saves on iCloud Drive	✅ Shared with the Mac and your other devices
Mods	✅ Data mods any time; code mods compiled in when porting. The port's own mod, TheSTouchscreen, brings the touch input and the Mobile UI; the port turns it back on at every launch, so unticking it in the mod manager cannot leave the touch input off
Sound	Plays with the iPhone in silent mode, mixed with other apps' audio, not yet confirmed on a device
Steam	Sign-in and license check. Achievements, online status and Steam Cloud are built into new ports, not yet tested with Timberborn
Frame rate	Not measured yet

Known limits: no hover, so no tooltips or highlight under the cursor (the tool bar's tooltips are removed); with the game's own HUD on iPad some buttons are small for fingers (raise the in-game UI scale, or turn on the Mobile UI); a mod with code needs a new port; the local HTTP API's web pages are off, since they compile templates at run time. A mod folder left over from an older port (the old Touchscreen mod) should be deleted in the Files app: the port never deletes anything on a device.

Stray


App size	8.4 GB
Screen	Landscape
Touch	On-screen gamepad, with a D-pad on the left edge
Controller	✅ Bluetooth controller tested; the on-screen pad hides when one connects
Keyboard, trackpad	✅
Saves on iCloud Drive	✅
Steam	Sign-in, license check and online status. No achievements yet: Unreal games need more of Steam's C++ interface
Frame rate	iPad M1: 40–50 fps, MetalFX upscaling from 75 %. iPhone 17: 30 fps by default, 1748×804 output (2×) upscaled by MetalFX from 44 %, no screen-space reflections; at 60 fps the phone overheats within minutes and slows down. The limit can be changed in the game's options
Memory	iPhone 17: chapter 4 (The Slums) uses about 5 GB of the 6.1 GB iOS allows, since sounds now decode as they play instead of all being unpacked when a level loads
Sound	Plays with the iPhone in silent mode, mixed with other apps' audio

Known limits: played up to chapter 4; short freezes the first time a scene appears, while Metal compiles its shaders (cached afterwards), and other short freezes on the iPhone; on the iPhone the cat looks pixelated while it moves (MetalFX shows moving objects at the render resolution), the phone still warms up over a long session, and the screen sometimes goes black while the game keeps running (relaunch it); distant textures can load later than on a Mac, since the texture pool is sized to the device's memory.

Valheim


App size	4.6 GB, and as much free space again to install an update
Screen	Landscape on iPad. iPhone: landscape, and portrait built but not yet tried on a device. A swipe from a screen edge needs a second swipe, so the iOS gestures do not interrupt play
Touch	On-screen gamepad in play; touch acts as the mouse in menus; the iOS keyboard opens for names
Controller	Not tried yet
Keyboard, trackpad	✅
Saves	✅ Steam Cloud, shared with the game on your Mac or PC, conflict prompt included
Sound	Plays with the iPhone in silent mode, mixed with other apps' audio, not yet confirmed on a device
Online	✅ Steam servers by IP (with password) and from the server list, crossplay servers by join code, hosting a world with crossplay. Not yet: joining a friend's game through Steam
Steam	One sign-in for the license, online status, achievements, Steam Cloud and online play
Frame rate	Not measured yet. iPhone renders at 75 %

Known limits: the on-screen gamepad covers parts of the HUD (hotbar slot 1, the minimap corner, food and health); online play and Steam Cloud are tested on the iPad, not yet on the iPhone.

Recomp Helper, the Mac app

Recomp Helper finds the games on your Mac, says which ones can be ported and why, and ports them in one go.

Finds your games in Steam libraries, /Applications, GOG, Epic, itch and Heroic, and in folders you add. Windows games, CrossOver bottles included, are listed as not supported, with the reason.
Sorts them into Tested, May work out of the box, Needs work and Not supported, with the reason for each game. A tested game shows its iPad and its iPhone status apart.
Ports in one go. Pick the iPad or iPhone, your signing team and where to keep the build. It runs every step with progress bars, a live log and plain hints when something needs you (unlock the iPad, sign in to Xcode).
Installs on another device after a port, and checks the device has room first.
Mods: tick which of the Mac's mods go into the port.
Saves: Steam games sync with Steam Cloud; other games can sync through iCloud Drive.

Download the notarized DMG from Releases, or build it yourself (Building the app).

Getting started

You need:

a Mac with Apple silicon or Intel, on macOS 14 or later;
Xcode with the iOS SDK, signed in to your Apple developer account;
the .NET SDK (brew install dotnet);
for Unity games, a free Unity Personal license (open Unity Hub once and sign in) and about 40 GB of free disk for the build;
an iPad or iPhone paired with the Mac, unlocked while the app installs.

With the app: open Recomp Helper, select a game, press Port.

From the command line:

python3 recomp.py scan                          # your games and whether they can be ported
python3 recomp.py inspect /path/to/Game.app     # engine, CPU, route and blockers for one game
python3 recomp.py env                           # Xcode, signing teams, paired devices

# Unity game: fetch its exact Unity version once, then port
python3 recomp.py toolchain /path/to/Game.app
python3 recomp.py unity  /path/to/Game.app --team <TEAMID> --device "<iPad name>"

# Unreal game
python3 recomp.py unreal /path/to/Game.app --team <TEAMID> --device "<iPad name>"

python3 recomp.py mods  /path/to/Game.app           # which mods go into the next port
python3 recomp.py saves /path/to/Game.app --enable  # games without Steam: share saves through iCloud Drive

Set RECOMP_HOME to keep the large files (Unity editors, builds) on another disk.

How long it takes	Measured
Valheim, first port	about 10 min just to convert 4 GB of asset bundles (13 GB of RAM at peak)
Timberborn, port again after changing mods	15–20 min with Unity's cache warm
Stray, install on the iPad	about 4 min: the whole 8 GB app is copied each time

Which games can be ported

May work out of the box. Recomp Helper's checks found nothing the route is known to trip over:

Unity 6 games built with Mono (a Data/Managed folder of .NET DLLs), on Apple silicon or Intel: the code is recompiled, so the Mac build's CPU does not matter;
Unreal Engine 4 games built for Apple silicon, when every function the game imports exists on iOS or in the port's shim.

Needs work first (a game profile, a stub or a patch):

Unity versions older than 6: the IL2CPP patches are written against Unity 6;
native plug-ins without a stub or an iOS build (Steamworks is the port's own Steam client, PlayFab Party is Microsoft's iOS framework, Apple's Mac plug-ins are stubbed);
libraries that generate code while the game runs (Harmony, MonoMod): iOS forbids it;
Unity's old input system: taps act as clicks, but pinch and multi-finger gestures need the Input System package;
large games on an iPhone: an 8 GB iPhone gives an app about 6 GB.

Not supported:

Windows games, CrossOver included: x86 code and DirectX shaders;
Intel-only native games: iOS forbids JIT, so there is no Rosetta-style translation;
Unity games built with IL2CPP, Unreal Engine 5, Godot, Ren'Py, LÖVE, HTML5 and custom engines: no route yet (Roadmap).

Passing the checks is a good sign, not a promise: memory, shaders and input only show on the device. What each check looks at: Compatibility checks.

Roadmap

Engines

Unity games built with Mono, recompiled to native code with IL2CPP
Unreal Engine 4 games for Apple silicon, retargeted to iOS
Other native Apple silicon games (custom engines): the same retargeting, with shims per engine
Godot, Ren'Py, LÖVE and HTML5 games, on each engine's iOS runtime
Intel-only games, by static recompilation, one game at a time

Devices

iPad
iPhone, for Unity and Unreal ports
Portrait play on iPhone, opted into per game (Valheim)
Portrait confirmed on a device
Stray's chapter 4 on iPhone (it ran out of memory there until 0.4.0)
Stray played to the end, on iPad and iPhone

Controls

Steam and saves

Mods

Data mods, added any time through Files
Code mods, compiled into the port
Harmony patches, woven into the game at port time
The port's built-in mod stays enabled, whatever the mod manager says
Harmony transpilers, reverse patches and patches made while the game runs
Mods for Unity games other than Timberborn

Recomp Helper

Finds games across Steam, GOG, Epic, itch, Heroic and your folders
Compatibility check with the reason for each game
One-click port of Unity and Unreal games, to an iPad or an iPhone
Install on another device, with a free-space check
Notarized DMG

Performance

Texture memory sized from the device's RAM (Unreal)
Per-game render settings, such as Stray's MetalFX upscaling
Stray on iPhone: sounds decoded as they play (1.5 GB less memory), 30 fps against overheating
A log line every 10 s: frame rate, GPU time, CPU per thread, memory left and thermal state
Frame rates measured for every tested game
Fewer stutters the first time a scene appears, while Metal compiles shaders
Stray on iPhone: a sharper image (2× output instead of 1×, no screen-space reflections)
Stray on iPhone: no short freezes, no black screen, cooler over a long session

More

How it works: the Unity and Unreal routes, game profiles, touch controls in detail, mods, save sync rules, the Steam runtime, debugging on the device and building the app.
Contributing: this repository is public. Never commit game files or personal details; see Contributing for the commit guard.
License: PolyForm Noncommercial 1.0.0: free for personal, hobby, research and other noncommercial use; selling it or using it in a commercial product is not allowed. It covers this tool only, not the games you port. Versions up to v0.3.0 were released under MIT.

Name		Name	Last commit message	Last commit date
.githooks		.githooks
app		app
docs		docs
recomp		recomp
scripts		scripts
stubs		stubs
tools		tools
.gitignore		.gitignore
LICENSE		LICENSE
README.md		README.md
recomp.py		recomp.py

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Mac to iOS / iPadOS Recompilation

Steam in your ports