MagicDesk is an open-source workstation environment for Android 15 and newer. It turns a phone, tablet, or Android secondary display into a practical desktop with native application windows, a taskbar and Start menu, desktop files and widgets, Files, Console, Task Manager, display capture, and physical keyboard and mouse controls.
Applications remain ordinary Android tasks managed by the system. MagicDesk organizes them into one workspace and connects them to Android displays, files, input, and an authorized shell identity. It does not stream applications, embed them in replacement views, or run a guest operating system.
The MagicDesk desktop uses one APK and one codebase across supported vendors. Standard Android behavior forms the baseline; platform, display, and SoC drivers add capabilities only when runtime probes verify them. Optional root hardware helpers remain separate and are never desktop requirements.
Development note: MagicDesk is a vibe-coded project, built primarily through iterative AI-assisted development and hands-on testing on real Android hardware. Its privileged shell integration and optional undocumented vendor interfaces make independent source review especially important.
Latest release | Development APK | Optional Display Fixes APK | Compatibility | Getting started
MagicDesk works with real Android tasks and WMShell windows. Applications can overlap, resize, snap, maximize, enter true fullscreen, move between displays, and continue running in the background according to their normal Android lifecycle.
The same desktop implementation runs on the phone, on a simulated development display, or on a connected wired or wireless secondary display. Desktop items, pins, shortcuts, widgets, recent applications, and live task layout can follow the session while output mode, Fill display, and DPI remain specific to each monitor.
Files, Console, Task Manager, Settings, notifications, media controls, and capture workflows are integrated with the desktop instead of being unrelated utility applications. Files and Console use the authorized Android shell identity, making the workspace useful without requiring a separate file manager or terminal package. When Termux is installed, the same Console UI can also host independent Termux PTYs and run its installed command-line tools.
An optional local MCP server exposes typed desktop actions, state, events, operation traces, visual observations, and interactive terminals. Android 16+ App Functions provide a smaller action set to authorized system agents. Automation operates on MagicDesk concepts such as tasks, displays, windows, and desktop items rather than depending only on synthetic screen coordinates.
- Run the complete workspace on the phone, a simulated display, HDMI/USB-C output, or an already connected Miracast display.
- Launch applications in remembered Auto, Windowed, or Fullscreen modes.
- Snap, restore, minimize, close, focus, and move exact Android tasks.
- Switch tasks with
Alt+Tab, use Show Desktop, and reach overflow tasks when the taskbar is full. - Preserve still-running tasks, window modes, bounds, visibility, and stacking when a desktop closes or an external display disconnects.
- Use Start search, application quick actions, widgets, Android app information, taskbar pins, and desktop shortcuts.
- Use
/storage/emulated/0/Desktopas a real desktop folder with freely positioned files, folders, shortcuts, and Android widgets. - Browse and modify the filesystem visible to the authorized shell identity in multiple Files windows, with list/grid views, search, selection, properties, drag and drop, and shared desktop context menus.
- Run independent interactive
/system/bin/shsessions in Console through a real PTY with ANSI color, alternate-screen applications, mouse reporting, selection, clipboard, and live resizing. - Open independent Termux-backed Console windows through the same terminal UI, window lifecycle, Desktop Entry pipeline, and semantic MCP controls.
- Inspect and control running tasks in Task Manager, including CPU and memory indicators, exact-task focus and close, explicit force-stop, and a bounded per-application log viewer.
- Create bounded freedesktop-compatible
.desktopentries for folders, web links, Android applications and shortcuts, Android shell commands, Termux commands, and Termux:X11 launch presets. Terminal applications created from Desktop, Files, or Console also appear in Start and can accept dropped or opened files through standard Desktop Entry arguments.
See Workstation tools and Desktop Entry files for the complete behavior.
- Use physical keyboards, mice, touchpads, right click, key repeat, keyboard layouts, and an optional phone touchpad and text-input panel.
- Capture the selected display and record video with automatic internal-audio, microphone, or no-audio selection according to detected capabilities.
- Control media volume and connected audio output from the taskbar.
- Select per-monitor DPI and, where supported, output resolution, refresh rate, and Fill display.
- Use optional platform features such as managed projection, phone-screen control, absolute pointer positioning, charging separation, cooling, and temperature readings without making them requirements for other devices.
- Control sessions, tasks, windows, Files, Task Manager, settings, diagnostics, and interactive terminals through the local MCP server.
- Observe bounded state, events, operation traces, screenshots, and pixel samples for development and troubleshooting.
- Run a production-path self-test on phone, simulated, wired, or wireless targets to check window transitions, focus, captions, background visibility, task-stack invariants, and cleanup.
- Generate a privacy-bounded compatibility report containing firmware, displays, input devices, component-provider evidence, capability probes, runtime counters, structured MagicDesk errors, and a machine-readable summary suitable for onboarding unverified firmware.
See Automation, Architecture, and the validation matrix.
MagicDesk requires:
- Android 15 / API 35 or newer;
- firmware with working Android freeform windows;
- the official Shizuku application with an authorized server running;
- one Device Setup pass and reboot before the first desktop session.
The Standard Android driver supports the phone desktop, the simulated desktop, and secondary displays that Android already exposes. MagicDesk reports Android's internal-display desktop resource as diagnostic evidence, but does not use it as a launch restriction: vendor and shell windowing paths may still work when that framework resource is false. External video output, Miracast, application-task hosting, and physical input routing remain firmware capabilities.
Nubia/REDMAGIC firmware has a separate platform extension for verified projection, display-output, input, phone-screen, and hardware interfaces. Other vendors continue through the standard driver; an unsupported optional feature is disabled rather than blocking the desktop.
Passing the baseline check does not guarantee that every firmware implements Android windowing correctly. See Compatibility and issue reports for tested profiles, support levels, known limitations, and report contents.
- Install Shizuku from its official releases, start its server through wireless debugging, ADB, or a deliberately configured root method, and confirm that it is running.
- Install MagicDesk from the latest release or the rolling development APK.
- Open MagicDesk and grant its Shizuku request.
- Select Prepare device, review the capability results, and reboot when requested.
- Restart Shizuku if required by its startup method, then open MagicDesk.
- Select Open desktop here for the phone or Start external desktop for a connected secondary display.
Use Close desktop to retain still-running tasks for a later session. Use Exit MagicDesk to discard the workspace, close MagicDesk windows, restore owned runtime state, and stop its services.
DisplayFixes-development.apk is an optional standalone root helper for the
small set of firmware that hides native external-display timings from shell
UID 2000. It is not required by MagicDesk and should be installed only for
that specific problem. See Native Display Mode Helper.
The full installation, session, update, and removal workflow is in Getting started.
| Shortcut | Action |
|---|---|
Win+D |
Start/reveal the desktop or restore the previous window layout |
Win+Up |
Move the active task to true fullscreen |
Win+Down |
Restore a fullscreen/maximized task; press again to minimize |
Win+Left / Win+Right |
Snap the active task to either half |
Alt+Tab / Alt+Shift+Tab |
Switch through exact Android tasks |
Alt+F4 |
Close the active task |
Win+Backspace |
Send Android Back to the active display |
Win+L |
Lock the phone |
Win+N |
Toggle notifications |
Win+Q |
Toggle the System panel |
Win+I |
Open MagicDesk Settings |
Win+Print Screen |
Capture the active display |
Win+Shift+Print Screen |
Start or stop desktop recording |
Ctrl+Space |
Select the next configured keyboard layout |
Win+/ |
Show all MagicDesk shortcuts |
Privileged operations run through one user-authorized Android shell service,
normally UID 2000 (adb shell) or UID 0 when the user deliberately starts
Shizuku with root. The effective identity and individual capabilities are
reported by Diagnostics. MagicDesk does not independently acquire elevated
privileges or silently fall back to application-UID behavior.
- The main APK contains no privilege-escalation path or kernel module.
- Files and Console show and use the connected shell identity. Applications opened from Files receive a temporary URI, not that identity.
- The MCP server is disabled by default, binds only to
127.0.0.1, requires a private bearer token, and has separate developer and shell-access gates. - Platform-specific commands remain behind capability and platform-driver boundaries.
- Restore defaults removes MagicDesk-owned persistent windowing overrides.
Read Shell access and privilege modes, Automation, and third-party notices before enabling privileged or automated workflows.
Firmware that hides the monitor's complete timing list from shell UID 2000 can be tested with the independent, direct-root Native Display Mode Helper. It is not part of the main APK or required for normal MagicDesk operation.
Open Tools > Diagnostics after reproducing a problem. Attach the complete report, exact reproduction steps, and whether the problem survives a reboot to a GitHub issue. Reports omit user files, accounts, notification contents, and the installed-application list.
The self-test is a contributor and compatibility tool, not a substitute for normal use on real firmware. Run it only while the phone is awake and unlocked and no other MagicDesk desktop session is active. See Compatibility and the validation matrix.
The project builds with JDK 17 or newer, Android SDK platform/build-tools 37,
and Android NDK 27.3.13750724.
./gradlew verifyDevelopmentEvery non-documentation push to main publishes a release-signed development
APK at the stable link near the top of this page. A v* tag runs the signed
release workflow and publishes the APK and SHA-256 checksum.
See Contributing for IDE setup, repository rules, build variants, verification commands, and pull-request expectations.
- Getting started
- Workstation tools
- Architecture
- Automation and MCP
- AI-assisted device support
- Desktop Entry files
- Shell access and privilege modes
- Native Display Mode Helper
- Compatibility and issue reports
- Fullscreen transitions
- Validation matrix
- Nubia vendor interface audit
- Contributing and IDE setup
- Author: Dmitry Mekhontsev
- Package:
io.github.mekhontsev.magicdesk - Minimum SDK: 35
- Target SDK: 37
- License: MIT
- Third-party components: notices and licenses