How to get Mac notifications on your iPhone.

Why this takes an app

Apple's notification sharing runs in one direction. A Mac can show the notifications from your iPhone, but there is no setting on either device that sends a Mac app's alerts to the iPhone. Apps that have their own iPhone version, such as Messages or Mail, notify both devices independently. Everything that lives only on the Mac stays on the Mac.

macOS also has no public interface that lets one app read the notifications of every other app. NotiFerry works from the record macOS already keeps: the Notification Center database. You authorize one folder, read-only, and NotiFerry watches it for new entries. If you want the background on what Apple does and does not sync, see does a Mac send notifications to an iPhone?

The full setup, start to finish

Allow about five minutes. You need a Mac on macOS 15 or later and an iPhone that can install apps from the App Store.

1. Install the Mac app. Open the downloaded disk image, drag NotiFerry to Applications, and open it from there. macOS checks the Developer ID signature and Apple notarization on first launch. NotiFerry then lives in the menu bar. If you use Homebrew, brew install --cask n2ctech/tap/notiferry installs the same download.
2. Authorize the Notification Center folder. NotiFerry opens the standard macOS file picker beside the folder that holds the Notification Center database, named db2. Select that folder and choose Allow Read-Only Access. NotiFerry is sandboxed and never asks for Full Disk Access.
3. Pick how much text leaves the Mac. Title only is the default. You can switch to the full notification or to a generic alert at any time; the table below shows the difference.
4. Subscribe your iPhone. Install the free ntfy app, allow its notifications, and add a subscription for the topic NotiFerry created for you. NotiFerry shows the topic as a QR code and as a link you can copy.
5. Send a phone test and confirm it. Press Send phone test, check that the test appears on your iPhone, and confirm it in NotiFerry. The 7-day trial starts at that moment, not when you installed the app.
6. Check one real app. The test proves the route from Mac to phone. To confirm capture as well, trigger a harmless notification from another Mac app and watch it arrive.

Turn on Launch NotiFerry at login in Settings if you want forwarding to resume by itself after a restart.

What arrives on your iPhone

Each forwarded alert appears as a notification from the ntfy app. It can carry the source app, the title, the subtitle, and the message body of the original Mac notification, depending on the privacy mode you chose.

Some things do not make the trip: app icons, images and attachments, action buttons and quick replies, sounds, and notification grouping. Tapping the alert opens ntfy, not the original app on your Mac. The mode applies to every forwarded app, and any app can be switched off entirely in Settings.

If a Mac notification does not reach your iPhone

Work through these in order; the first two explain most cases.

• Make a new notification. NotiFerry forwards only what arrives after setup, and after each time you resume from a pause. Earlier alerts are skipped on purpose.
• Check the Mac first. If the alert does not appear in the Mac's own Notification Center, there is nothing to forward. Confirm the app is allowed to notify in System Settings, under Notifications. Apps that draw their own banners instead of using Notification Center cannot be captured.
• Check the iPhone. ntfy needs notification permission, and the subscription must match the topic shown on the Mac exactly. Focus modes and Scheduled Summary can hold a notification back even after it has been delivered.
• Look for a shared Focus. Focus is shared across your Apple devices by default, so a Focus turned on at the Mac also applies to the iPhone and can silence ntfy there. Allow ntfy in that Focus if you want Mac alerts while you work.
• Allow for pacing. On the public ntfy.sh service NotiFerry sends about twelve notifications a minute, and ntfy.sh documents a limit of 250 messages a day. Once delivery falls behind, five or more alerts from one app arrive as one, showing the newest and how many came before it.
• Pause and resume. If the dashboard says Forwarding, the phone test works, and new alerts still do not arrive, switch forwarding off and on again. That re-reads the current position in Notification Center.
• Stop a loop. If your Mac also shows iPhone notifications, turn ntfy off in that list on the Mac so forwarded alerts do not come back and get forwarded again.

The support page covers the folder permission, topic rotation, and diagnostics in more detail.

Other ways to get Mac alerts on a phone

NotiFerry is not the only route, and it is not the right one for everything. If the alert comes from your own script, a one-line command can publish straight to your phone with no app on the Mac at all; see send a notification from your Mac to your iPhone. For a side-by-side look at the available apps and services, including what each one cannot do, read Mac-to-iPhone notification apps compared.

The 7-day trial exists so you can check your own apps, network, and iPhone before paying €9.99 once for up to 2 Macs.