Made for Linux
Built on top of IronRDP for RDP and its own engine for VNC, Mote has been designed and tested for full compatibility with GNOME Remote Desktop (both Desktop Sharing and Remote Login), xrdp, KRdp, TigerVNC and wayvnc.
Mote 1.4 What's new →
A GNOME-native RDP and VNC client
Available for 64-bit Intel/AMD and ARM as a Flatpak, AppImage or native DEB/RPM package.
- Open source · AGPLv3
- Zero telemetry
- Flatpak, AppImage, DEB/RPM
RDP and VNC geared for Linux
Mote is designed to make remote desktop access simple and fast on the Linux desktop
VNC support
Connect to TigerVNC, wayvnc, GNOME Remote Desktop's VNC and other VNC servers. Sessions are encrypted with TLS, VeNCrypt or RSA-AES.
Screen Sharing on macOS
Connect to a Mac with Screen Sharing or Remote Management turned on, as Apple Remote Desktop does. Mote signs in with Apple's own encrypted methods by automatically picking the one your version of macOS supports.
Dynamic resizing
Supported sessions automatically adjust the remote resolution to fit the window size. HiDPI and fractional scaling support are built-in for sharp rendering at any resolution.
H.264 video
Smooth video through the graphics pipeline decoded by FFmpeg, OpenH264 or optionally Cisco's OpenH264 codec. Fall back to RemoteFX when H.264 is unavailable. A helper is included to aid installing the correct codec if your system lacks it.
Full clipboard sharing support
Copy/paste text, rich text, images and files between the remote and local machine with ease.
SSH tunnels and RD Gateway
Connect to machines behind a firewall using SSH or through an RD Gateway.
Wake-on-LAN and reconnecting
Supports waking a sleeping machine before connecting. Built-in fault-tolerance for unstable network connections.
Multi-monitor support
Access all your screens on a remote machine that has more than one monitor
Sound, microphone and folder sharing
Share audio devices and folders between the local and remote machines with ease
Import your connections
Import your existing .rdp and .vnc files directly into Mote or import RDP and VNC connections from an existing Remmina install.
Find computers on your network
Scan Network lists the RDP servers, VNC servers and Macs on your local network, ready to add with their address filled in.
Uncompromising privacy
Mote connects directly to your machines with no relay in between or telemetry collected.
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Zero telemetry
No analytics, no tracking and no usage data. The app makes no connection you didn't ask for.
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Passwords in the keyring
Passwords are kept security in your desktop's keyring
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Identities checked
A machine's certificate, an SSH host key or a gateway's certificate is shown before the first connection to ensure you're connecting securely.
0accounts, trackers and telemetry pings
Tested against Linux RDP and VNC servers and macOS
We built Mote to work flawlessly with Linux RDP servers such as GNOME Remote Desktop (Desktop Sharing and Remote Login), xrdp and KRdp, with VNC servers such as TigerVNC and wayvnc, and with Macs. Mote has not been tested against a Windows machine.
GNOME Remote Desktop
GNOME 46 or later. Both Desktop Sharing and Remote Login are fully supported. GNOME Remote Desktop sends H.264 when a compatible graphics card is present on the remote machine.
xrdp
Version 0.10 or later, with and without the graphics pipeline. PulseAudio and PipeWire sound modules fully compatible. xrdp sends H.264 from version 0.10.2.
KRdp
KDE Plasma 6's own server encodes H.264 with FFmpeg.
VNC servers
TigerVNC 1.15 or later, wayvnc and GNOME Remote Desktop's VNC, each with its own encryption: VeNCrypt, RSA-AES or TLS. Servers that offer only VNC Authentication, such as Linux Mint's, connect once you allow an unencrypted session for them.
macOS
Screen Sharing and Remote Management both supported. Tested on macOS 27 where Mote signs in fully encrypted with Apple's SRP. Older versions of macOS are handled automatically: Mote tries Apple's sign-in methods in turn, strongest first, until the Mac accepts one. They have not been tried on a real older Mac yet, so if you use one, tell us how it went.
Windows
At present, Mote has not been tried against any Windows client. If you use it with a Windows machine, tell us how it went.
Free and open source
Mote is released under the GNU AGPLv3. The code, the roadmap it was built from and every release are on GitHub.
Built with AI, shipped by a human
Mote is built by a human maintainer who uses generative AI as a development tool. The maintainer decides what gets built, reviews the results, tests every release and signs off on everything that ships. The app icon was made by Jason M. The app itself contains no AI and makes no requests to AI services. Read the AI notice →
Bug reports and pull requests are welcome whether or not AI tools were involved. Everything merged is reviewed by a human first.
Install Mote
Available as a Flatpak, AppImage and DEB/RPM packages, for 64-bit Intel/AMD and ARM.
What you'll need
- 64-bit Linux, Intel/AMD or ARM.
- A Secret Service keyring (GNOME Keyring or KWallet)
- For Flatpak installs: Flatpak, with Flathub enabled. Mote runs on the shared GNOME runtime from Flathub so installing Mote pulls that runtime as well.
Recommended: working GPU drivers (OpenGL / Mesa) and a GNOME-style desktop. Package installs decode H.264 with the system's FFmpeg or OpenH264; without either, Settings > Video downloads Cisco's OpenH264.
What's new
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1.4.0
New features:
- VNC (macOS) in the connection editor's protocol list
- Connection Info window from the session menu
- Quit in the session menu
- iShareScreen credited in About
Fixes:
- the session menu closed by itself during Mac sessions
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1.3.0
New features:
- VNC connections beside RDP
- macOS Screen Sharing support
- Encrypted sessions with Macs
- Automatic choice of the sign-in each macOS version takes
- Encrypted VNC sessions
- Stop before an unencrypted VNC session unless allowed
- VNC desktop resized with the window
- Codec choice for VNC connections
- Two-way clipboard for text with VNC servers and Macs
- Caps Lock and Num Lock kept in step with VNC servers
- VNC profiles imported from Remmina
- VNC connections imported from and exported to .vnc files
- Scan Network lists the RDP and VNC servers on the local network
- Scan Network covers additional subnets
- Adding a scanned server opens the connection editor
- Protocol named on every sidebar row
- Several addresses on one connection
- Addresses tried in order until one connects
- Addresses reorder by dragging
- Alternate full address read from and written to .rdp files
- Delete button in the connection editor
- Projects Mote is built on credited in About
- Beta builds in every package format
Fixes:
- deleting a connection left its session running
- Flatpak bundles never received updates
- adding a scanned server used its name as the address
Translations:
- French by @frenchy82 - (#1)
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1.2.0
New features:
- Open a connection fullscreen
- Open a connection in a new window
- Window defaults for new connections in Settings
- Option to hide account avatars in the sidebar
- Option to hide the large account avatar on the connection page
Install Mote beta
The beta gets new features first, before they reach the stable release.
Built on
Mote relies on the hard work from these projects.
- IronRDP Devolutions' Rust-based RDP protocol engine
- iShareScreen The description of Apple's Screen Sharing protocol
- GTK and libadwaita The toolkit and GNOME's design
- Relm4 The way the interface is put together
- russh SSH tunnels
- FFmpeg and OpenH264 H.264 decoding
- DiceBear Pixelbot: the cute robots avatars
Questions or bugs?
Open an issue on GitHub. Please search the existing ones first, then include your Mote version, the remote server and its distribution, your desktop distro and the steps that lead to the problem.