Hotline Navigator
A modern client for the Hotline protocol, on every platform.
Why this exists
Hotline Navigator is a new client that lets you connect to that still-living network from any device you own. It’s a spiritual port of Dustin Mierau’s excellent Hotline for macOS, rebuilt from scratch with Tauri, TypeScript, React, and Rust to run natively on desktop and mobile.
Runs everywhere
One codebase. Six platforms. Native performance on all of them. Cross-platform doesn’t have to be a compromise.
| macOS 11.0+, Universal | iOS 18.7+ |
| Windows x86_64 | iPadOS 18.7+ |
| Linux x86_64, ARM64 | Android 7.0+ |
What the hell is Hotline?
Hotline was a Mac-native BBS for the internet era, created by a teenage Australian programmer in the mid-1990s. It let anyone spin up their own private file-sharing server with chat, news posts, and user accounts—like Discord crossed with peer-to-peer file sharing, years before either concept existed. It exploded in popularity, then imploded in lawsuits and drama—but the network itself never actually died.
Features and Philosophy
Full Hotline protocol support: chat, file transfers, news boards, and messaging, in a multi-session, single-window interface designed to work at any screen size. It also includes modern features like TLS encryption support (with auto detection), ability to preview files without downloading, chat mentions/watch words, notifications and more.
Tauri uses the operating system’s native WebView for the UI and a compiled backend, so it’s lean: a single binary for each platform is about 15 MB uncompressed (macOS is ~30 MB as a universal binary). RAM usage is often around 50–60 MB, and it idles near zero CPU.
Hotline Navigator’s aim isn’t to provide the most native experience on each platform, but to provide a consistent experience and rich feature set across all platforms. I highly recommend testing out multiple clients to find the one that works best for you — see the Hotline Wiki for a list of clients.
Hotline Navigator will always be backwards compatible with the Hotline protocol, but aims to support more modern features and improvements as they become available through collaboration with the Hotline community.
This is client software only. Want to run your own Hotline server? Mobius is a modern, open-source server that works with all Hotline clients, and MobiusAdmin gives you a native macOS GUI to manage it.
Privacy Focused
Hotline Navigator does not collect, store, transmit, or sell any personal data. Period.
Get it
Grab the latest release from GitHub. Desktop builds install normally; mobile builds require sideloading.