Everything you need to get the most out of Magic AV Remote. Start with the user guide, scan the frequently asked questions below, or reach out to us directly.
New to Magic AV Remote? Connecting your first receiver takes about a minute.
The first time you open Magic AV Remote you'll see the "Let's connect your receiver" screen. Before searching, make sure your receiver is powered on, on the same network as your Mac (Wi-Fi or Ethernet), and — if it has one — that its Network Standby option is enabled. Then click Find My Receiver.
Magic AV Remote searches your local network for compatible receivers — both Modern (eISCP) and Legacy (Telnet). This takes only a few seconds.
When the scan finishes you'll see the receivers it found, each with its address and protocol. Click Connect next to yours — and you're in. If nothing appears, click Search Again, or add it by hand under Settings → Receivers.
A complete, friendly walkthrough — setup and connecting, day-to-day controls, advanced features, themes, Apple Shortcuts, and troubleshooting.
Open the user guide →The quick answers to the questions we hear most. For deeper detail on any topic, see the user guide.
Open Settings → Receivers and double-check the IP address and family. The number-one cause of failures is "Connection refused" because another app, browser tab, or stale session is holding the receiver's single allowed control slot — close other clients or power-cycle the receiver.
Click Connect in the title bar to manually open a session, or re-select the receiver from the menu to force a fresh connect. If the dot quickly flips to red ("Unreachable"), the receiver isn't answering — check power, network, and that no other client is holding the slot.
On Legacy receivers this is the deliberate idle state. Those receivers allow only one control connection, so after about 90 seconds of inactivity the app closes the connection to free that single slot for other apps; press a button and it reconnects automatically (the dot turns yellow while idle). Modern (eISCP) receivers allow multiple connections, so the app keeps the connection open and does not idle-disconnect — keeping live now-playing info such as the elapsed-time counter updating continuously.
Yes — open multiple windows (⌘N) and select a different receiver in each. Each window holds its own independent connection.
Yes. Magic AV Remote is LAN-only. It talks directly to your receiver over your local network — there is no cloud service. You can disable internet on your Mac entirely and the app still works.
No. All traffic is between your Mac and your receiver on your local network. The app makes no outbound internet connections and has no analytics. Album art for the Now Playing panel is fetched from the receiver itself, not a third party. See our privacy policy.
The app displays only the artwork the receiver itself provides over the network. If the art isn't appearing on the receiver's own on-screen display or connected TV, it won't appear in the app either — there's nothing for the app to fetch. Whether artwork is exposed depends on your receiver's firmware and the current source; some firmware versions and some sources (including AirPlay on certain receivers) don't serve it over the network. This is a receiver limitation, not an app bug.
Magic AV Remote only intercepts the media keys while it's the frontmost app. Click the window to bring it forward and the keys will route to the receiver.
SC-35 / Elite-class receivers don't support graphic-EQ control via their network interface. The EQ panel only appears when the connected receiver responds to an EQ query, which these receivers do not. This is a hardware/firmware limitation, not a missing app feature.
Zone 3 is a hardware feature — not every receiver model includes a third zone (generally the more capable models do). If your receiver doesn't have Zone 3 hardware, the Zone 3 tab still appears but the commands have no effect on the receiver.
Yes, via Apple Shortcuts. Chain Set Power, Select Input, Set Volume, and other actions into a single Shortcut and bind it to a hotkey or schedule. You can also trigger them by voice with Siri.
Probably, if it's a Pioneer or Onkyo with eISCP (Modern) or Telnet (Legacy) network control. Add it manually with the appropriate port (60128 or 8102) and see whether commands flow. Some commands may produce errors (the receiver simply ignores them) but core features — power, volume, mute, input — are widely shared across both families.
No — Magic AV Remote is Apple Silicon only. It's built arm64-only and requires an M1, M2, M3, M4, or later Mac running macOS 14 (Sonoma) or newer.
If the user guide and the FAQ above didn't sort it out, send us a note — especially if something isn't working with your particular receiver. The more detail (receiver model, what you tried, what happened), the faster we can help.
We're a small independent operation, so replies come from a real person and may take a day or two.