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iPhone Mirroring in Tahoe won't use new iPhone 17 Pro Max

WolfSnap

WolfSnap

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Sep 18, 2012
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Anyone figure out how to get Tahoe to use your new phone for iPhone mirroring? It keeps trying to connect to the old iPhone 16 Pro Max that I had.

Settings doesn't show any option to change the phone, and in system settings -> Desktop & Dock it doesn't show any dropdown to choose which iPhone to use.

I haven't yet wiped the iPhone 16 PM, but, it seems like it should work either way.. No?
 
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Check these things that Apple say to check when having problems.

Control your iPhone from your Mac

Use your Mac to control your iPhone with iPhone Mirroring.
support.apple.com support.apple.com

Screenshot 2025-09-21 at 7.14.23 AM.png
 
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chabig said:
Check these things that Apple say to check when having problems.

Control your iPhone from your Mac

Use your Mac to control your iPhone with iPhone Mirroring.
support.apple.com support.apple.com

View attachment 2554762
Click to expand...
I've checked all this already. There should be no reason it's not working. They're a few inches from each other, on the same wifi, bluetooth is on on both devices, handoff is enabled. They're both signed into the same Apple Account. I've rebooted the devices, turned handoff off/on, etc.. So odd...

Handoff is working -- if I open Messages on my iPhone 17 PM, it will show in the dock on my Mac.. But, widgets and iphone mirroring seems to be broken still....?
 
Last edited:
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I am also having this problem since "upgrading" to the iphone 17. "iPhone mirroring" is not even in settings on the phone and Widgets on Mac has no toggle for which iPhone.

Ive restarted both devices. Hope this is resolved soon.
 
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T.Morlet said:
I am also having this problem since "upgrading" to the iphone 17. "iPhone mirroring" is not even in settings on the phone and Widgets on Mac has no toggle for which iPhone.

Ive restarted both devices. Hope this is resolved soon.
Click to expand...
Mine just started working randomly. 🤷🏻‍♂️
 
WolfSnap said:
Mine just started working randomly. 🤷🏻‍♂️
Click to expand...
Did you remove your old iphone from your account? That is something I havnt done yet to send it back in to apple, and am wondering if thats a cause. I understand that I should be able to toggle between phones, but that option is not even availalbe to me.

ty
 
T.Morlet said:
Did you remove your old iphone from your account? That is something I havnt done yet to send it back in to apple, and am wondering if thats a cause. I understand that I should be able to toggle between phones, but that option is not even availalbe to me.

ty
Click to expand...
I removed the old phone, and I *also* did:

Code: 
defaults delete com.apple.ScreenContinuity

and deleted the file at with the command:

Code: 
rm ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.ScreenContinuity.plist

Plus rebooted... I had to delete the defaults a few times to be honest. But, it did eventually work. As did the widgets that weren't showing up.

Of course, BE CAREFUL with entering shell commands if you don't know what you're doing.
 
What worked for me was to force quit the process duetexpertd (from Activity Monitor) and then after opening iPhone Mirroring again, my new iPhone showed up in System Settings like the support document indicates. Restarting my devices didn't help.
 
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01cowherd said:
What worked for me was to force quit the process duetexpertd (from Activity Monitor) and then after opening iPhone Mirroring again, my new iPhone showed up in System Settings like the support document indicates. Restarting my devices didn't help.
Click to expand...
This worked for me this morning.
 
WolfSnap said:
I removed the old phone, and I *also* did:

Code: 
defaults delete com.apple.ScreenContinuity

and deleted the file at with the command:

Code: 
rm ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.ScreenContinuity.plist

Plus rebooted... I had to delete the defaults a few times to be honest. But, it did eventually work. As did the widgets that weren't showing up.

Of course, BE CAREFUL with entering shell commands if you don't know what you're doing.
Click to expand...

01cowherd said:
What worked for me was to force quit the process duetexpertd (from Activity Monitor) and then after opening iPhone Mirroring again, my new iPhone showed up in System Settings like the support document indicates. Restarting my devices didn't help.
Click to expand...
Neither option worked for me. I am on a managed device (BYOD). Need to test my personal device.

No issues with my iPhone 16 Pro last week.
 
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The only thing that worked for me was to sign out of iCloud on my MacBook Pro and sign back in again. May have had to reboot after as well, don't remember for sure.
 
Add me to the list of those struggling. I've tried all the things in this list so I guess I just wait to see what happens. (I left the beta train when the official Tahoe was released. Maybe this is fixed in the new betas?
 
There is a setting in System Settings > Desktop and Dock > Widgets under iPhone. If you have your phone under the same Apple ID and it is connected to the same Wi Fi network it will appear as an option. Select the phone you want. However, and this is a big 'however', it is does always work first time out. Once selected, make sure your iPhone is nearby and it will show a message as it tries to pair. Mine failed to pair and showed the ever turning gear wheel. I tried rebooting both the laptop and phone and all to no avail. Nothing worked.

I eventually got it to work by trying to use the phone as a wifi hotspot from the laptop. This option should appear in the Personal Hotspots list. Once that worked and connected, I reverted to the standard wifi network on the laptop, the pairing completed and when I went into the iPhone Mirror app, it worked as expected.

I think the problem is related to the network and especially if you have a mesh network and the laptop and phone are connected to two different nodes, but I am not sure of this. Whatever the issue, Apple need to get this worked out as this makes the feature useless for the average person who will not be willing to fiddle with network connections etc. Apple have always had troubles in this area (try trying to get a pair of HomePods into a stereo pair if each one of the pair is connected to a different network node on a mesh network, identical network, identical router setting etc. but Apple have no idea how to make it work until you force each of them to connect to the same node) and they have really not got a grip on making this sort of thing foolproof.
 
01cowherd said:
What worked for me was to force quit the process duetexpertd (from Activity Monitor) and then after opening iPhone Mirroring again, my new iPhone showed up in System Settings like the support document indicates. Restarting my devices didn't help.
Click to expand...
I logged into MacRumors just to thank you for this. These steps worked for me.
 
I tried all of the above with no success. My new iPhone wasn't showing up anyway. However, I did find another way:

  1. Open Settings app on the iPhone
  2. Tap General, tap AirPlay & Continuity, then disable handoff then turn it back on.
As soon as I turned it on, my new iPhone showed up in iPhone Mirroring as an option. It also put the "iPhone Mirroring" section in "AirPlay & Continuity" which wasn't there yet.

FWIW, I turned "Handoff" off again since I don't like that on my Mac. The iPhone Mirroring continues to work fine now that it's triggered and setup.
 
Unfortunately, I've had no luck with any of these recommendations. Even after revoking access to my old iPhone, that button is still greyed out on the Mac button, and it still tries to connect to the old one too. I'm hoping that Apple is aware and has a fix soon, or a workaround that works for everyone. I will say that my Mac lost the ability to tether to my iPhone automatically quite a while ago, but it does connect to others in my family just fine since we are all on a family plan together (I'm not sure if this is related).
 
stukdog said:
I tried all of the above with no success. My new iPhone wasn't showing up anyway. However, I did find another way:

  1. Open Settings app on the iPhone
  2. Tap General, tap AirPlay & Continuity, then disable handoff then turn it back on.
As soon as I turned it on, my new iPhone showed up in iPhone Mirroring as an option. It also put the "iPhone Mirroring" section in "AirPlay & Continuity" which wasn't there yet.

FWIW, I turned "Handoff" off again since I don't like that on my Mac. The iPhone Mirroring continues to work fine now that it's triggered and setup.
Click to expand...
Tried this. No luck as well.

Tried on my non-work managed device, no luck either. Leads me to believe it is an iOS 26, macOS Tahoe and or iPhone 17 issue.
 
Oddly enough, I am able to get push notifications on from my iPhone to my Mac. But no mirroring nor live activities.
 
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What worked for me was first signing my Mac out of my iCloud account and signing back in, and then doing this:

01cowherd said:
What worked for me was to force quit the process duetexpertd (from Activity Monitor) and then after opening iPhone Mirroring again, my new iPhone showed up in System Settings like the support document indicates. Restarting my devices didn't help.
Click to expand...

A bit of a hack, but I'm glad I can play my iPhone games on my Mac again!
 
None of this worked, I just kept trying—logged out of iCloud on old phone, and Mac. Deleted system files. Couldn't get it to show at all.

Right before it worked, I did plug the phone into the computer and enable "Sync this iPhone when on Wi-Fi" and I also launched iPhone Mirroring while holding Option (⌥). Have no idea if that actually impacted anything but here we are...
 
stukdog said:
I tried all of the above with no success. My new iPhone wasn't showing up anyway. However, I did find another way:

  1. Open Settings app on the iPhone
  2. Tap General, tap AirPlay & Continuity, then disable handoff then turn it back on.
As soon as I turned it on, my new iPhone showed up in iPhone Mirroring as an option. It also put the "iPhone Mirroring" section in "AirPlay & Continuity" which wasn't there yet.

FWIW, I turned "Handoff" off again since I don't like that on my Mac. The iPhone Mirroring continues to work fine now that it's triggered and setup.
Click to expand...

This worked for me when nothing else would. Thanks!
 
stukdog said:
I tried all of the above with no success. My new iPhone wasn't showing up anyway. However, I did find another way:

  1. Open Settings app on the iPhone
  2. Tap General, tap AirPlay & Continuity, then disable handoff then turn it back on.
As soon as I turned it on, my new iPhone showed up in iPhone Mirroring as an option. It also put the "iPhone Mirroring" section in "AirPlay & Continuity" which wasn't there yet.

FWIW, I turned "Handoff" off again since I don't like that on my Mac. The iPhone Mirroring continues to work fine now that it's triggered and setup.
Click to expand...
TapDatApp said:
This worked for me when nothing else would. Thanks!
Click to expand...
I gave this another try, with the added step of rebooting my iPhone between turning handoff back on. So
1. Open settings
2. Turn off Handoff
3. Reboot
4. Turn Handoff back on

And all worked again.
 
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