Tern on iPhone

2 min read

Tern for iPhone brings your Spaces, their tabs and pinned tabs to your phone, kept in step with your Mac through your own iCloud. Each Space has an agent there too.

NoteTern for iPhone is coming soon to the App Store. It's free and needs iOS 26 or later.

Set it up

  1. Sign in to the same iCloud.Your iPhone and your Mac need to use the same Apple Account for your Spaces to come across.
  2. Open Tern and tap Get Started.Choose a model for your agents and add your Claude key. You can also add the key later, in a Space's agent.
  3. Bring your Spaces.Tern looks in your iCloud for Spaces from your Mac. Tap the Bring button, which says how many it found, to take them, or Start Fresh Instead to begin with a new Space and leave sync off.

From then on, a Space you change on one device changes on the other. See Sync with iCloud for what travels and what stays put.

Get around

  • Move between Spaces by swiping the address bar sideways. To see them all, open the page's menu at the end of the address and choose Spaces.
  • See a Space's tabs with the tabs button in the bar. What's open today comes first, and your pinned tabs and folders are a switch away.
  • Find the rest in the page's menu: Show Reader, Find on Page, Pin Tab, History, Downloads, Private Browsing and Settings.

Tabs you haven't looked at in a while sleep to save battery, and load again when you open them.

The agent on iPhone

Every Space on iPhone has an agent of its own, with the same rules as on the Mac. It asks before anything that sends, posts, buys, books or pays, and never types passwords or card numbers. Choose Ask the Agent About This Page from the page's menu to have it sum up what you're reading.

While Tern is in the background, an agent at work shows on the Lock Screen. When it needs your OK, you can tap Allow or Don't there, without opening Tern. A watch shows on the Lock Screen only when it needs an OK.

Models are chosen per Space in Settings, under Model for each Space.

Privacy on iPhone

Trackers and ad servers are blocked in every Space, as on the Mac. Your sign-ins stay on each device and never go to iCloud. Crash reports are off until you turn them on in Settings, under Privacy. See Tracker blocking and Private windows.

To move a page between your iPhone and your Mac, see Send a tab to iPhone and Pages from iPhone.

Something missing or out of date? Write to hello@ternbrowser.com.