How to approve Claude Code permission prompts from your phone

The short answer

When Claude Code wants to run a command or edit a file, it pauses and asks for permission. If you're not at your computer, the session just sits there. To approve it from your phone today you have roughly three options: Anthropic's own Remote Control, small community tools that turn permission prompts into push notifications, and an always-on app like BotBus that watches several agents at once. All three stop the "waiting on an approval nobody sees" problem. They differ in whether you have to change how you start Claude Code, whether you can follow more than one session, and whose servers your data passes through.

Why approvals stall your work

By default Claude Code asks before risky actions: running shell commands, writing files, reaching the network. That's a good default. It keeps an agent from making changes you can't undo without you knowing. It also means a long task gets interrupted several times, and each time someone has to be at the keyboard to click. While you're in a meeting, at lunch, or on the train, the agent isn't doing anything. It's waiting for you.

Moving approvals to your phone means solving three things. You need to hear about the prompt when it happens. You need to see exactly what the agent wants to do, meaning the full command or the files it will touch. And your answer has to get back to the waiting session reliably, with timeouts and errors never being treated as a yes.

Three ways to do it

Anthropic's Remote Control

Claude Code ships with Remote Control. Run claude remote-control in your project folder, or type /remote-control inside a session, then connect from the Claude mobile app or the web, and you can approve permission prompts from there. When we checked on September 28, 2026, it required a Claude Pro or Max subscription with a claude.ai login, each Claude Code instance supported one remote connection at a time, and closing the terminal ended the session. If you only use Claude Code and watch one session at a time, it's the simplest choice.

Push-notification tools

Several community projects use Claude Code hooks to forward permission prompts to your phone, for example through ntfy or Telegram, so you can answer with a tap. They're lightweight and easy to tweak, but they usually do approvals and nothing else. It's also worth checking what the third-party server in the middle can see, since commands and file paths may pass through it in plain text.

An always-on app on your computer: how BotBus does it

BotBus runs on your computer, as a menu bar app on the Mac or a background command-line service on Linux. It finds the agents installed there, including Claude Code and Codex, and syncs their tasks to your iPhone and Apple Watch. For Claude Code it has two approval paths:

Sessions you start on your computer. In BotBus settings, under Local Agents, click Install Hooks. BotBus merges its hooks into ~/.claude/settings.json and leaves the rest of your configuration alone. You keep running claude in your terminal exactly as before, with no wrapper command. When a session asks for permission, BotBus holds the request and sends it to your phone.
Sessions you start or continue from your phone. BotBus runs Claude Code in non-interactive mode on your computer, and permission requests travel over that control channel straight to your phone. This works even if the hooks aren't installed.

The approval card on your phone shows the tool and what it wants to do, and you can allow or deny it. When Claude Code asks you a multiple-choice question, the options show up on your phone too, and you answer with a tap.

The safety limits, stated plainly

Approving from your phone means a decision that can change your code crosses the network, so the limits matter:

A timeout is never an approval. A session on your computer waits up to about 30 minutes for your answer. If it times out, or BotBus quits, the decision goes back to Claude Code's own permission prompt on your computer. Nothing is allowed automatically.
Your computer has to be online. You can browse tasks that have already synced without it, but approving, following up, starting tasks, and interrupting all need that computer online and a connector that supports the action.
Content is end-to-end encrypted. Tasks, conversations, commands, and notification text are encrypted on your device before they leave it. The key reaches your phone only through the pairing QR code on your computer's screen, and the relay server only ever handles ciphertext. The server still sees what it needs to route data: device IDs, online status, update times, and data sizes. The details are in how we encrypt.
Small screens make mis-taps easier. Read the full command before you approve. For hard-to-undo actions like rm, git push --force, or database migrations, it's fine to wait until you're back at your desk.

If a project generates more approvals than you want to handle, BotBus can auto-approve per project. That only applies to turns you start from your phone. Questions still come to your phone, and turns running on your computer aren't affected. Think about what the agent can reach in that project before you turn it on.

Can I use it today?

On the computer side there's a Mac app (a menu bar app, macOS 26 or later) and a Linux version (a command-line program for x86_64 and aarch64; see the install guide), and you can download both from our site. The iPhone and Apple Watch app is available on the App Store. Windows and Android versions are planned. Besides Claude Code, BotBus works with Codex, Hermes, Pi, OpenClaw, and DeepSeek Harness, and you can connect your own agent over ACP.

FAQ

Will BotBus's hooks mess with my existing Claude Code settings?

No. The installer only adds or removes hooks that carry BotBus's marker, so your own hooks and settings stay as they are. You can uninstall them from the same settings page.

What happens when I deny a request from my phone?

That tool call doesn't run. Claude Code gets the denial and decides what to do next.

Can I approve from my Apple Watch?

Yes. Once your watch syncs pairing from your iPhone, it connects on its own, so you can allow or deny with a raise of your wrist without pulling out your phone.

I run several Claude Code sessions plus Codex tasks. Can I see them all in one place?

Yes. Tasks are grouped by computer and project, anything waiting for your approval is called out, and you can pair more than one computer to the same phone.